Stranger
by Musixeer
Summary: Arya Stark returned to Westeros with a singular purpose: to get vengeance for her family. After failing to assassinate Cersei Lannister, however, she is forced to turn to the only familiar face in King's Landing. Her resolve will be tested when the stranger she's become is reunited with the remnants of her past. Rating changed for raid violence in chapter 7.
1. Desperation

_Arya Stark returned to Westeros with a singular purpose: to get vengeance for her family. After failing to assassinate Cersei Lannister, however, she is forced to turn to the only familiar face in King's Landing. Her resolve will be tested when the stranger she's become is reunited with the remnants of her past._

 _A.N.: Jon will also be in this story, but I could only choose four characters, so I went with those who will be in it most frequently. This story will focus on Arya and her fractured psyche, generally from the perspective of others, and will feature elements of Arya/Gendry as well as the altered familial relationships between the remaining Stark children._

 _For the most part, this story starts shortly before 7x01, but I've altered the timeline slightly from the aired chronology such that Arya dealt with the Frey's a short time after Jon retook Winterfell. This timeline will be posted in a note at the end of the first chapter and will be updated as I post new ones-but the timeline will always be in the first. I'll update this story as I can, but I still need to work on a few others as well. It won't be a terribly long story, like mine tend to be. I've got about 14 chapters planned at the moment, and they're shorter than my usual-about three Word pages each on average._

* * *

Her blood dribbled on the stone cobbles underfoot as she made her way, droplets from tendrils of crimson iron that snaked down her dominant arm. Her fingers were sticky with it. Her clothes were wet with it. She'd tied a rolled cloak around her back, but it stemmed the flow little now, probably soaked through with it. Her eyes were already going dark. She'd lost far too much blood. So much, in fact, that she failed to lift her foot when she thought she did. She lurched forward when her boot got stuck on an errant cobblestone and the world tilted sharply. She hit the stone hard but didn't have the energy even to utter more than a pained wieze.

Her vision failed for a moment and returned as a blurry window of sight that was less than it had been before. It would be so easy then to just lie there, to let the rest of her blood leave her and to expire in that damp alley smelling foul of excrement and vomit and fish. But, if that happened, they would surely find her. If she was recognized, war would go to Winterfell for her actions that night.

And if she fell, she failed.

She'd come too far to fail.

Physical pain was not new to her. She had in fact become quite well-acquainted with it over the past couple years. Even still, the sheer agony, the fire that lit every nerve in her back, as she pushed herself up off the cold damp stone was like nothing she'd ever experience. She probably cried out. She couldn't hear it over the ringing in her ears, but it probably sounded quite pathetic. She pushed through it all until she stood once again, hunched but upright, and then she continued on her way with sluggish, dragging steps, supporting her weight on the wall using the arm she could still feel.

There was only one place in the entirety of King's Landing she could go. She'd cut through an irrigation canal to break off her blood trail and was now cutting her way through the dark alleys along River Row. She couldn't spare the energy to reach into her bag and retrieve the face of a stranger, to protect her identity from any brave few souls who might look out their windows in morbid curiosity with those bells ringing out from the Red Keep so close by. But, even if she were physically able, she probably shouldn't disguise herself. It'd been three years. She had no idea when he'd returned to King's Landing. Or why. But, he was going by a different name. The Gold Cloaks had to be looking for him still. He may not help a stranger, not on a night like this with the entirety of the guard to be out looking for her.

But, he would help Arya Stark.

* * *

Gendry, or Joseth as he'd made himself known since his return to King's Landing, was woken by the bellowing cadence of the bells from the Red Keep. Those bells only ever meant one of a few things. They'd rung only weeks before when the King, young Tommen Baratheon, had thrown himself from a window after the Sept had been razed to the ground by Wildfire. Gendry wondered for a time, staring up at his ceiling, what had happened this time. At the least, he took some solace in that there had been no explosions. Was it a siege, then? Stannis Baratheon was dead, but he was hardly the only man with eyes for the Iron Throne. The smith allowed himself a brief moment to wonder if the Queen had been assassinated. That would hardly be the worst thing to happen to the city. Queen for a little over month and already the city was terrified. Some had fled, left for business out of town or to visit distant relatives when in fact they had no intention of returning, and the idea looked more appealing by the day. There would certainly be no love lost from her people were her rule to end so soon after it had begun.

Ultimately, Gendry decided that, one way or another, he wouldn't be sleeping that night. Not with that racket from the Keep. So, he stood and redressed and went out into his small smithy to start on an order of fish hooks that had come in the previous day. He didn't do many swords or much armor anymore, mostly equipment for the shipyards, but it was still good work, kept him busy and was more probable to keep him away from the scrutiny of a woman who wished him dead for his lineage alone. The pay wasn't terrible, even in the Waterfront. He ate well-enough most weeks and only forewent some because he was saving his coin to leave King's Landing and open a forge somewhere else, perhaps in the Riverlands or the Rainwood somewhere.

Fish hooks were easy. Roll a narrow steel rod, heat it, hammer one end into a barbed point, then bend it into shape. There were plenty to be made, though, a dozen in a single order and many orders a day. He was halfway through a second order when a knock came at his door, two pounds on the wood a lengthy beat apart. Gold Cloaks, he suspected immediately. Out for whatever the disturbance was about. He hated it whenever they came round. It didn't happen often, but he feared one of them would recognize him from his time as an apprentice under Tobho Mott. It had yet to happen, but it was surely only a matter of time.

Gendry set his hammer and the tongs holding the latest fish hook aside with a sigh and left his work. The chiming of the bells got louder as he pulled his door open and he was surprised to find it wasn't the city guard at his door but rather a single stranger, a small figure slumped against the wall beside the hollow of his door, dark form silhouetted by the pale light of the moon and stars above.

"What do you want?"

He let his irritation clear through because, if the guards found them talking in such a manner with those bell ringing through the night, he'd likely be hung for suspicion of treason by morning. He was about to tell this person off and send them away to bother someone else for whatever they needed.

Then his visitor looked up at him, long brown hair parting, and Gendry was struck dumb, staring into a face he'd thought departed from the world long ago.

He hardly had time to be surprised, however, didn't even have the time to utter her name in shock. Arya Stark pushed from the wall beside his door and started forward, surely to enter his forge. If the Gold Cloaks were out swarming the city for whatever those bells were ringing, she certainly wouldn't want to be found by them. But, Arya failed to take even a single step and pitched forward. Her knees buckled as her eyes rolled back in her head and her frame went slack. Gendry still had enough sense to catch her, fortunately enough, her dead weight landing on his front.

The first thing he noticed was that her clothes seemed to be wet, a curious thing since it hadn't rained in weeks. The second was that Arya Stark had grown since he'd last seen her, a young girl dressed as a boy staring after him as he was carted away to the slaughter at the order of Stannis Baratheon. In height, she had certainly grown since then, if little at that, but it was her front, pressed into his chest, that spoke of her growth into womanhood during their separation.

The third was that her clothes were not wet with water.

Dread seeped into his veins as he drew his hand from her back to find it sticky with blood and he looked down to find her back drenched with it. Gods, there was _so much_ blood…

Panic was his driving force then, and Gendry stooped to sling the limp girl across his shoulders. She didn't groan or protest to his manhandling of her, didn't make a sound, and it was so unnatural that it scared him near out of his wits. She'd already passed out and he thought it a miracle she hadn't before then—by the looks of things, she'd been bleeding for some time. He brought her to his room. His bed, just a linen-wrapped straw mattress set against the wall, was the only place in the entire smithy where he could put her and he eased her down onto her stomach as gently as he could manage to assess where all the blood was coming from.

Rolled fabric, probably the remnants of a cloak or something similar, had been slung around her back and was soaked through, so he cut through the material with a leatherworking knife to peel it away without having to turn her over to untie it. The gash beneath was so long that he struggled for a word that could do it justice. It went from her left shoulder, arching over the lump of muscle at the base of her neck, and reached almost all the way down to her right hip, surely bone-deep for the majority.

Gendry did what he could, which was maddeningly little. He plugged the very large wound with a shirt, which he'd ripped down the side to add length, but was at a loss then. He was very far out of his depth, having only dealt with the much more minor injuries of his trade. She was still bleeding. _Arya Stark_ was bleeding out on his bed, the crimson of her life leaking out slower than it surely should, which meant she'd probably bled a good deal of her blood already. The timing, he knew, couldn't be a coincidence. The bells. Then Arya with a wound obviously from a sword. Any who looked at her would surely think the same.

But, he wouldn't be able to save her life. He needed help, so he left to find it.


	2. Waiting

_Arya has made it out of immediate danger but now must survive the consequences of her actions. The danger to her life is still not passed and now Gendry is involved and must tend to an unconscious fugitive while the entire city is made aware of the plot to kill their Queen._

 _A.N.: This turned out a little longer than I expected. I hope you enjoy it._

* * *

There was a healing woman, a spinster named Cassella. She lived a couple streets down from him. She was reluctant to come with him with the bells still sounding from the keep, but the blood on Gendry's clothes and arms seemed to convince her that his need for her help was desperate.

The first thing she did when she stepped into his room was check Arya's pulse. Gendry was afraid for a moment because it was entirely possible that Arya had died before they'd returned. She was certainly pale enough to suggest as much. But, after a moment Cassella turned her attention to the now slightly bloody shirt on the girl's back and Gendry released the breath that had caught in his lungs because that had to mean his friend, a friend he had until moments before feared long dead after he'd heard of the wedding which had claimed the lives of her mother and brother, was still alive. The healing woman paused a moment when she lifted the meager attempt at a bandage from the girl's back to find Arya was bleeding out from a large sword gash on her back and he feared for a moment that she would turn, leave, and bring the guards. She didn't, for whatever reason and Gendry wondered not for the first time how many people in the city would even care if their new Queen died.

As Cassella got to work inspecting the wound, the smith brought her a bucket of water and the cleanest rag he could find-she ignored it in lieu of her own fresh rag, which she must've retrieved from the box of supplies she'd brought with her. After he'd done that, Gendry was just leaning against the wall in the corner, able only to watch as Arya was stitched back together. With every pass of the needle he cringed because the girl didn't even flinch, too lost to the world to even register the pain of any of it. She was so still and her skin was so pale that any who walked in would think her dead, just as he himself had feared. It was a wonder that she wasn't, he thought. Only a few passes of that needle later and he couldn't take it anymore, so he left the room.

Scooping water into a bowl from the slack tub-the healer now had his only bucket-Gendry went outside and cleaned up the blood on his doorstep. The task took several refillings and when he finished he refreshed the water one more time and scoured by the pale light of the moon for any blood droplets Arya had left behind on her way there. It took awhile, but the smith was eventually able to discern a dark spot a few paces from his door as something other than dirt and he scrubbed it clean. He continued this process down to near the end of the street where the spots started on down an alley that went south towards River Row.

The Red Keep was to the east, more apparent now with those damned bells still ringing, and he wondered how far around Arya had gone in an attempt to throw off any potential pursuers.

On his way back inside, he noticed a dark lump by the wall around the same place Arya had been standing when he'd opened his door. Upon inspection, he found it was a small, worn leather pack. The blood on it told him who it belonged to, so he brought it inside with him. By then, Cassella was finishing her application of some kind of salve to Arya's back. As she set the mortar aside, Gendry rested the pack against the wall, noting how the girl, still with an ashen pallor to her skin, looked no different than she had before he'd left. It was a small bit of consolation that she didn't look worse either.

"She is fortunate this wound was made with a well-forged sword," Cassella said as she unrolled a long swatch of linen and folded it lengthwise. "If it had been poor, the wound would be much rougher and tougher to stitch." She eased the linen down along the length of the very large gash. "All the same she's lost too much blood. A fever has already begun to take hold."

Cassella turned to him then and the meager amount of hope that had begun to build within him as Arya was treated fizzled out.

"You should prepare yourself. She will likely die before morning."

Gendry swallowed the stone in his throat and nodded in grim understanding.

* * *

Despite her words of warning, Cassella brought back a bundle fresh linens for bandages and gave Gendry instructions to inspect and lightly clean the wound every hour, laying new linens across each time and applying more of that salve she'd made to help stave off infection.

What would follow would be one of the longest nights he'd ever been through and it had already been halfway over when Arya had first arrived at his door. He tried very hard not to focus on Cassella's foreboding parting words but found the thought always in the back of his mind. He spent the following hours in an odd mixture of rapid movement, tending to her stitched wound or fetching new water to dampen the cloth he kept applying to her forehead to treat her fever, and then in an utter lack of motion as he sat against the wall by the mattress, unable to do anything more for her but also unable to leave her alone, fearing in those moments he left the room that she would expire during his absence. He found himself checking her pulse more often than he could count, never finding much of a difference. And in those moments between the commotion, all he could do was sit and stare and wonder, wonder about where she'd been, what she'd been through, where she'd gotten that small scar at the inner tip of her left eyebrow, how long she'd been in King's Landing, how she'd found him, and so many other things.

Mostly he wondered on the latter because it was the only concrete information he had. Of all of King's Landing, she'd come to his door through a delirium of blood loss. The only conclusion he could draw from this was that she'd already known he was there. For how long she'd known, he couldn't hope to guess. He hadn't even known she was still alive before she'd shown up a couple hours before. He couldn't help but wonder why he hadn't known sooner, why she hadn't come to see him, even if only for a brief visit to let an old friend know she was still around and kicking.

It was a long night of mending and sitting and wondering and it was all somehow terribly more exhausting than any of Gendry's physically taxing smithing work. Eventually, the bells stopped ringing and he once caught himself almost drifting off in the silence that followed. He bolted upright against the wall and slapped his cheeks a few times to rouse himself, debating dunking that bowl of water over his head as an added precaution.

Then he looked up and Arya's eyes were open. He nearly fell over in his surprise and sleep became the farthest thing from his mind.

"Arya?" he asked in a breathless whisper as he crawled over to kneel down into her field of vision.

Through the small slits between her barely open eyelids, Arya's eyes shifted toward the movement of him, but they barely focused on anything at all before her eyelids drifted shut. And then she was lost to the world again, her breaths still coming in shallow and ragged. Gendry waited a moment for her to rouse again, but she didn't.

With a deep sigh, he stood to busy himself and went to refresh the bowl of water then returned to dampen the cloth for her forehead.

* * *

When dawn finally broke, there was a soft knock on his door. His sense told him the Gold Cloaks would have banged loudly on the wood despite the early hour, but Gendry still hesitated to answer. He found, however, that Cassella had returned with her box of supplies and was put at ease.

"Is she still alive?" the woman asked bluntly and Gendry offered a mute nod as he let her in.

The woman gave no indication of surprise or appreciation of the fact or anything else as she went right for his room and the smith trailed after her. He stood in the doorway and watched as she worked, checked the girl's pulse, set the back of her hand to Arya's forehead to check her temperature, and then lifted the linens from her back to check and clean the wound. The sown folds of skin were beginning to bruise, deep purples taking hold of the puckered tissue. Arya slept on through all of the prodding.

"Her color is returning. That's good," Cassella said.

Gendry wondered at that because he failed to see much of a difference, but perhaps he'd been staring at Arya too long to notice.

The healing woman enlisted Gendry's help then. Together, they removed the bloody bedding from beneath the girl and managed to lay down a new sheet the woman had brought with her. When she removed a clean shirt from her box of supplies, Gendry felt himself flush because he knew the woman wouldn't be able to put it on the girl herself. The redness worsened as Cassella cut along the already existing slash in the ruined linen that covered Arya's torso, a fever not of sickness burning in his face as he helped the healing woman dress a girl who'd been only little more than a flat-chested child the last time he'd seen her. He did his best not to look anywhere improper, though this was much easier in theory than in practice while finagling Arya's limp limbs out of her old garb and through the sleeves of the clean shirt. It was fortunate that it tied at the back. If they'd had to manage it over her head, he feared his hand may have accidentally landed somewhere… embarrassing, and he was fairly certain Arya would've killed him if she ever found out about it.

Once she was at last clothed again, Cassella bid Gendry roll Arya onto her side and hold her steady while the woman supported her neck to tilt her head. From a rag she dunked in a bowl of water, she squeezed small amounts into the unconscious girl's mouth, not so much that she would choke, but enough that her body would recognize the need to swallow on it's own. She needed to hydrate, after all, but would be unable to do so herself while unconscious.

"She is young," the woman mused as they eased Arya back down onto her stomach a short time later and the rag was returned to the girl's still burning forehead. "But, I've seen even strong young men perish from less. She must have a strong want to live to have even lasted this long in her condition."

Gendry said nothing, but as he stared down at Arya, he thought of her father, the second Hand to visit him and the second to end up dead, and he thought of all the rumors he'd heard of the tribulations of her family in recent years. Then he considered her reason for returning to King's Landing and he knew Cassella was right.

Hatred could be a strong motivator.

Before she left, leaving instruction that he only needed to change the linens every couple hours now, Cassella gave Gendry warning that the guards had sealed off the city and were searching every building for the attempted assassin of the Queen. They'd already been spotted in the Waterfront, she said, and Gendry offered his thanks for her help and for the warning and paid her for her services before he set about working out what he would do when the guards came.

He wouldn't be able to sneak her out to stash her in another house. The only person he could trust with her was Cassella and that had been out of necessity. There were surely to be others in and out of her home for treatment, people who might sell Arya out to the Gold Cloaks if they knew of her, so he couldn't bring her there. The only viable option would be to hide her somewhere.

It was fortunate, he thought then, that the previous owner of his smithy had been involved in some form of smuggling. Gendry had only realized this when he'd stumbled across the panel in the wall of his bedroom, the wall shared by the only other room in the place, which he used as a kitchen. He used the space in the hollow wall between them for storage, kept some nonperishable food and his more valuable forged items inside in the event of a robbery. It wasn't a large space, barely three feet in width and height and little more than a third of that in depth. But, Arya was small; not as small as she'd once been, but Gendry had still stood nearly a head over her when she'd arrived. His biggest concern was the strain the cramped quarters would put on her wound and stitches. There wasn't enough room to lay her down, so she would have to be seated, her back to a wall. He'd have to wait until the last minute to put her in there, to limit the stress she was put in.

Gendry set the bloody linens and bedding on the embers of his forge to burn, his back to the window that looked out at the street to block the view of them. Any passersby would surely just think him tending to the embers and for once he was relieved for the poor quality of his bedding, for it burned quickly.

Once that was finished, he headed back to his room. As carefully as he could, he slid the mattress, Arya still unconscious atop it, away from the wall so that he could open the small panel there. The grain and rice inside, he moved to his kitchen, and the other items-a helmet, though not the bull one he'd lost when they'd been captured by Lannister men, a couple of well-forged daggers a customer had never returned for, and the double-pronged battle hammer he'd made for himself with the head in the shape of a bull's head-he set about his smithy as inconspicuously as he could, hoping the guards' search for Arya would make the items go unnoticed.

For the time he'd spent doing all of this, Gendry refreshed the rag on Arya's feverish brow. Her fingers twitched briefly as he did so, drawing his watchful eye, but when she made no other movements he realized she must've been dreaming. He could only guess as to what, but he hadn't the time to sit and ponder on it, taking to stand beside the window out in the smithy instead to wait, watching for sign of the Gold Cloaks. He waited so long he began to worry for leaving her alone for all that time, but the city guards were a more pressing threat at the moment than her fever, however much he hated it.

Finally, he spotted a flash of gold just down the street and he threw himself into motion. There would be a lot of guards. He probably didn't have much time. Carefully, he removed the pillow from beneath Arya's head and set it against the wall inside the small smuggler's alcove. He cringed as he rolled the girl back onto her side to lift her up, one hand under her knees and the other supporting her back. He was painfully aware of the bandages there, but thankfully he didn't have to carry her far at all. He set her down as gingerly as he could manage inside the space in the wall, easing her back against the straw pillow that was little better than nothing. Upon a second thought, he grabbed the linen sheet from the bed, the one Cassella had brought with her, and bundled it up to ease down behind the girl's lower back as well for a little bit of extra padding that also served to subvert the slouched nature of her limp posture. Her knees were bent, and her toes were pressed into the opposite wall, but she fit and that space beneath her knees was large enough for her bloodstained pack.

Gendry was about to stand when he heard a small wheeze of a breath and then he took time he didn't have to look up, finding Arya's half-lidded eyes waiting for him, fixed on him in a mildly cognizant manner that had been absent the first time.

"G... Gen… d…" She tried to say his name and his chest filled to the brim with relief and emotion.

He cursed the loud pounding that came at his door because of course it had to come then, when she was finally awake again. He locked eyes with Arya and pressed a finger to his lips.

"Gold Cloaks," he muttered

Arya didn't respond, probably didn't have the strength to, but she blinked and it was somehow resonant of a nod. He took it as understanding, so Gendry nodded in turn and stood to slide the wall panel back into place and flipped his mattress, sliding it back against the wall as quietly as he could manage in his haste. He prayed to the Gods that the guards wouldn't think to flip it because, while the linen sheet had been changed, the mattress itself still had some of her blood on it. With no time to worry about it, Gendry went out into the smithy as someone pounded on his door again. As he passed the forge toward his door, he dirtied his hands with fresh soot and smeared it on his cheek and arms then wiped his hands on his clothes. With this and the embers still a little warm from his burning of the linens, it would appear as though he'd actually been working all day as opposed to tending to the fugitive they were all looking for.

Gendry was pulled outside by one of the guards as soon as he opened his door and he swallowed the protest that rose in his throat as two others stepped inside. He could do nothing but listen then and with each clatter that echoed out he had to stifle a flinch, praying it wasn't the sound of a wooden wall panel being thrown down. The guard with him watched him during the entire process and Gendry kept his eyes down and his posture as loose as he could manage, playing the submissive citizen who had nothing to hide and understood why the search was necessary.

It felt like forever, but the guards finally re-emerged from within his smithy, frowning and empty handed, and Gendry breathed a sigh through his nose. They said nothing as they stalked off and the smith went back inside as around him the street was busy with searching guards.

He couldn't go right to his room. If any Gold Cloaks at the nearby houses looked inside, that would appear suspicious: a smith ignoring the disarray that had been caused in his smithy to go running into a back room, out of sight. So, with a tight clench of his jaw for every second that Arya was in that cubby, Gendry set about restoring some peace to the space, righting the tables that had been tipped—what, had they thought her hiding in the clearly empty space underneath, or were they just frustrated by the search and had decided to take it out on his things?—and returned the items to them that had been scattered across the dirt. He glanced out his window often, catching glimpses of Gold until, finally, he didn't. Eager, he went to his window and peered out more properly and was relieved to spot the guards flocking off down the street and that was all he needed to see.

He went straight for his room. Inside, he found his mattress, the only object taking up the space, had been slashed open, but it hadn't been flipped. He did so then, flipped it away from the wall and back to the side that was still intact and then he pulled the panel away from the wall.

Gendry berated himself for hoping differently, but Arya was unconscious again. The guards had taken their sweet time ransacking the place and then he'd had to wait for their departure from the street.

Of course the girl had passed out again by then.


	3. Distant

_A.N.: Arya's fever finally breaks. Their reunion doesn't go as easily as Gendry thought it would._

* * *

Cassella returned that night, after the guards' search had moved on to the next sector in the city. It was fortunate because a few of Arya's stitches had torn during the chaos and needed to be resown. Gendry waited in the smithy. Blood didn't bother him, but watching the healing woman sow folds of skin together made him cringe, so he opted not to look on as she did so. He was comfortable and familiar with the mending of steel, not the mending of flesh.

Gendry spent that time working, having moved on from the since finished orders of fish hooks from the previous night to an order of cleats for a ship. As he did this, the smith considered that he was actually glad the city had been sealed off. For the proximity of his smithy on the Street of Steel to the docks just outside the walls, the vast majority of his business came from the fishermen and the shipyards outside the city. None of them could get to him at the moment, which was fortunate because he hadn't had much time at all to work on any of his orders since Arya had appeared, only one or two things here and there when he could no longer just sit and watch her fail to so much as stir.

Cassella offered to stay for a few hours that afternoon to watch over things and let him get some sleep. Gendry was hesitant but ultimately agreed. He wouldn't be able to make it through another night without at least a nap. The floor wasn't a terribly comfortable place to lay, but it served its purpose. He got a few hours of rest before the healing woman had to leave to tend to her other patients.

And so began another long, uneventful night of his vigil.

* * *

Arya's fever finally broke by midday the next, a cold sweat taking hold of her. Cassella had told him that, if this were to happen, it would be a good thing. It would mean the festering in the wound was finally starting to die out. Gendry took this as a good sign and used the opportunity to catch up on a little more sleep. When he awoke some time later he was even more stiff than before and thought even the ground out in the wilderness was more comfortable than his floor. With a groan for his stiff muscles and the ache in his neck, he sat up and cast a cursory glance over at Arya to check on her.

And then he went completely still because her eyes were open.

Her eyes were open and they were fixed on him.

She'd been asleep for nearly two days, so perhaps he should've, but he hadn't expected this. He sat dumbstruck for a moment with his mouth agape and his eyes wide. Only when Arya blinked up at him was he finally roused from his stupor.

"H-hey," he stammered.

All other words failed him. What was he supposed to say to his former friend, the daughter of a dead Lord, presumed traitor, who had shown up at his door after failing to assassinate the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, only to collapse from a severe and bloody injury and fall unconscious for two days?

Arya's throat worked as she swallowed thickly and then she rasped out a weary, "Hey."

Water. She needed water. He could do that.

"I'll be right back."

Gendry returned a moment later with some fresh water for her, half expecting Arya to have lost consciousness again like she had all other times. He was pleasantly proven wrong in this when she looked up at him upon his reentry into the room.

She couldn't well drink the water laying on her stomach, though, so Gendry helped roll her onto the side of her uninjured shoulder to allow her to drink. Arya grunted at the movement, but he expected far worse given the sheer magnitude of her injury. Cassella said she'd applied some topical painkillers to it in that salve she'd made, but also said the most effective stuff was supposed to be ingested, which Arya had been unable to take while unconscious.

The girl took a small sip of water and swallowed slowly, giving a soft groan of relief.

Gendry felt her trembling under his hand and this, coupled with how she was sweating, reminded him that, while her fever had broken, it wasn't yet gone.

"How are you feeling?" he asked after he helped ease her back down.

Arya sighed as she settled, one of the only signs she'd given during the process that indicated she was even in any discomfort.

"Warm," she said despite her shivering.

Gendry nodded his understanding because he hadn't expected differently-although he hadn't thought this would be the first thing on her mind.

"Your fever's broken, though, so that should get better soon."

"Is there anything to eat?"

The smith berated himself for his lack of forethought the instant she asked this because of course she would be hungry after a day and a half without food. He didn't have anything prepared, but he did have a quarter loaf of bread in his kitchen. With nothing else to offer in that moment, the smith tore the bread into small pieces, knowing Arya wouldn't be able to tear at it very well with the gash arching up over the slope of muscle at the base of her neck, and brought it to her bundled in linen cloth. At least it was dry, so she could eat it while laying on her stomach. He imagined laying on her side, however briefly, had to be excruciating.

While she ate, Gendry went to retrieve some painkillers from Cassella. The woman was happy to oblige and marvelled that Arya had woken 'so soon'.

It hadn't been soon enough, in his opinion, but he didn't say as much.

Gendry returned to find Arya had only eaten about a third of the bread and was again fast asleep. He should've seen that coming… But, at least she'd woken up and had been aware of her surroundings this time, well-enough to eat, even. That alone took a great weight off of his shoulders.

* * *

Whatever Gendry had been expecting when she finally woke up, it hadn't been so much silence. Arya slept a lot, which he understood, but even when she was awake she didn't say much of anything. He asked questions at first: where she'd been, how she'd ended up in King's Landing without being recognized-though she certainly didn't look like the same little girl he'd known, so perhaps that wasn't so surprising-and how exactly she'd been wounded. It was clear that she hadn't gone home as he'd thought was her aim after their separation, another thing he was curious about.

She never really answered him on any of this. She always either gave some cryptically vague response or didn't say anything at all. Eventually, he stopped asking and he couldn't deny his disappointment in any of it nor how that disappointment grew in the days that followed.

He would catch her staring a lot, not that she could really do much of anything else. Usually she stared at the wall opposite the mattress, either lost in memory or deep in contemplation over things he couldn't fathom, but sometimes he caught her looking in his direction when he glanced over from his spot on the floor at night. He wondered if it was only happenstance, if he was just blocking her view of the wall, and he wondered a lot about the focus of her thoughts-her expression, or the lack thereof, certainly gave nothing away-but he didn't ask. She probably wouldn't tell him if he did, anyway.

Gendry cooked what he could, mostly bland and meager stews which were certainly nothing to boast over, and she needed help eating those just as she did drinking. Arya didn't complain about the food, which surprised him at first because even he didn't like his own cooking, but in the end he just chalked it up to more lack of expression, which seemed to be her standard now. At her insistence, and secretly-but probably not quite so secretly-to his relief, he would bring the chamberpot to his room when she asked and he would then leave to let her do her business in private. At _his_ insistence, he checked her stitches afterwards every time, but she was apparently careful enough in her movements that she didn't strain them because the sutures were always fine.

Eventually, Arya did answer one of his questions. It was at night a few days after she'd woken up and Gendry had been staring up at his ceiling for a duration of time he couldn't define when he'd had the inclination to ask. He could tell by her breathing that Arya was awake too, so he decided it was worth a shot.

"When did you find out where I was?"

It was silent for so long afterwards that Gendry wondered if he'd misjudged, that she actually was asleep, but when he turned his head on his arm to look at her he found Arya watching him. She blinked but didn't look away. She just kept staring with that stoic expression she always wore and he wondered again what she was thinking.

He wondered that a lot.

When she remained silent, he assumed this would just be another one of those unanswered questions, so he looked away, back up at the ceiling.

That was when she finally said, "Five days before I came here."

Gendry turned, surprised to actually hear her respond and without being inscrutable, to find her staring still.

Then her words registered in his mind and the smith repeated them in a muttered undertone, "Five days…" as he considered them.

Honestly, Gendry wasn't sure what answer he'd been expecting or what he even felt about her response. Of course, he'd already known she'd been aware of his location before she came to his smithy, so this news was hardly a surprise or a shock to his system. It wasn't even as though she'd kept her distance for months, but she'd still known where he was and hadn't stopped by to let him know she was at least alive. Arya remained as impassive as ever as she observed him observing her and nothing in her expression or her tone indicated that she felt any sort of regret over this.

He had no right to feel as such, but this knowledge hurt him more than her distance did, both that which he now knew of in hindsight and that distance at present as she, while occupying the same room as him, remained closed off and far away.

* * *

Arya's fever was mostly gone by the following morning. After he helped her eat Gendry brought in a bucket of water. She gave him a curious look, the first real break in her stoicism, and it made him hesitate, somehow embarrassed when he really had no reason to be.

"You probably don't want me to… bathe you," he said and felt his neck flush just for saying the words, "but I could at least rinse your hair for you."

She'd been sweating for the better part of a day and her hair, once soaked through with it, was now dried and crusty. He had no idea if that bothered her or not as it probably would most girls, but the mats of dried blood at the ends and through much of the left side of her hair had to be uncomfortable, so he thought he'd offer all the same.

He added an unsure, "If you want, that is," as he shifted on his feet, the water sloshing in the bucket as he did so.

The offer, he felt, was a completely innocent one, but Arya seemed almost… uneasy in the face of it. She seemed so uncertain, in fact, that Gendry began to worry the offer was somehow improper, not that she'd cared about that sort of thing before.

He was taken aback when Arya actually offered her quiet approval, a softly spoken, "I suppose," that surprised him, both because she'd agreed but also because of the almost vulnerable undertone lining the words.

Despite her acquiescence, her obvious discomfort with the situation put him on edge alongside her, making Gendry pause briefly with a want to fidget before he crossed to sit on the floor beside the mattress. Arya rolled her back towards him to lay on her side and gave a soft grunt of pain that had to be understated despite the pain-reducing agent she took in her water every few hours.

He only realized how long Arya's hair had actually gotten when he was working the tangles of grime from it. To his hazy recollection, it had barely reached her ears before. For its new length and the wretched state of it, rinsing her hair out took some time, but, slowly, it's color returned to its natural brown as the water in turn became gradually murkier with dirt and sweat and blood. The girl was silent through all of it and he thought she may have even fallen asleep at one point. When he was finally done, Gendry didn't want to disturb her, so, in the event that she was still awake, he quietly let her know he'd finished before leaving to dump the water.

He didn't have the vantage during any of this to see how the process affected Arya. The last time someone had washed her hair for her had been shortly before she'd left Winterfell with her father and sister. She'd been stubbornly refusing to bathe for the month-long trip to King's Landing because she would only get dirtier on the road. Her mother had intervened. Despite her protests that she didn't need either the bath or the help with the bath, it had always comforted and quieted Arya when her mother washed her hair and that time had been no different.

It was one of her last memories of the woman who had raised her, one she'd locked away because it was too painful to consider in the absence of it's chief character.

The current rinsing of her hair, while just as soothing as it had been when she was a child-at least, once the tangles had been worked out of it-brought that memory to the surface and with it the feelings from a young girl who missed a mother she would never see again. By the time he was finished, Arya was afraid her emotions might spill over. This favor from Gendry was also the first real comfort she'd experienced since her time as a dead girl had begun, which only added to the overwhelming nature of it all. Unable to see, and thus unaware of, any of this the smith didn't linger when he was done and she was glad. When the door to the smithy opened and closed and she was finally alone, she turned back onto her stomach.

And with her face buried in the pillow, Arya Stark cried for the first time in years.


	4. Let Me

_A.N.: I can totally work with this! I believe I can make this story at least mostly canon-compliant as of 7x05._

* * *

The city gates were reopened that same day. The City Watch, of course, had never found their assassin and it was widely suspected that she'd either died by the wounds inflicted upon her that night or she'd managed to slip out of the city before they'd closed it. It meant Gendry could officially get back to work, which was fortunate because Arya was… unpleasant towards him for days following and he had no idea of what had her so cross. She didn't yell at him or grumble under her breath. In fact, she wouldn't speak to him at all anymore. She wouldn't even look at him. When he inspected and cleaned her stitches, she would turn her head in the other direction. At night, she did the same, faced away from him while they slept on opposite sides of the same room. She insisted upon feeding herself despite the awkward nature of having to eat using the hand of the same arm she had to lean on to support herself. She rejected his help in most everything.

His time in the smithy was now good for more than work. It allowed Gendry to hammer out some of his growing frustrations.

The first words she spoke to him were three days into this shift in dynamic. Arya was settling back down onto her stomach after she'd finished eating. She was clearly struggling, but she'd refused his help when he'd offered, this time and every other time for three days.

She didn't cast so much as a glance in his direction but seemed to know he was watching from the door because she said, "Don't pity me."

The words were harsh and spoken with a challenge in them and Gendry sighed through his nose in frustration.

"I'm not pitying you, Arya. I'm worried about you."

She finally managed to get comfortable, it seemed, because she exhaled in relief. "Same thing," she muttered against the side of the straw pillow.

"No it's not." Gendry said, firm. "I didn't even think you were still alive, let alone that you knew I was. Then you showed up on my doorstep after three years, bloody and dying. I'm entitled to a little worry."

Arya didn't even look up. She didn't respond. She didn't do anything but lie there and refuse to acknowledge him further. He knew she didn't want his help, for whatever that need for help meant to her, but it occurred to him then that perhaps there was another problem here.

"You don't trust me no more, is that it?" The thought was an inherently displeasing one. "You think I'm going to hand you over to the Gold Cloaks as soon as it suits me?" She remained silent, still faced away from him, and Gendry felt the need to hammer some metal burning in his chest. "Well, if that's the case, then why did you even come here, Arya?"

After a beat, she muttered against the pillow, "…I shouldn't have."

As he glared down at her, Gendry wondered if there was a word for a state of being that was beyond frustration.

"Well, you did, and like it or not I'm going to get you better now that you have."

The smith turned to leave the room. Her voice stopped him in the doorway.

"I could just leave."

Gendry paused and exhaled fiercely through his nose before he turned back to her.

"Well, alright." He stepped out of the doorway and motioned through it. "There's the door. Have at it, then."

Arya turned to look at him for the first time in days to set a glare on him that would've sent other men running for the Dornish Marches. Gendry met that glare head on, daring, but perhaps that was his first mistake.

When, afterall, had Arya Stark ever shied away from a challenge.

With her one good arm, the girl braced her weight and pushed herself up onto her knees. To his surprise, she even managed to get herself up onto her feet, albeit on legs that shook for the effort of it. She made it an entire step off the mattress before her legs buckled. Gendry, ready for this, was quick to catch her, one arm across her front to support her torso and the other slung around her back and around her middle to help take the weight off of her legs.

"Ah- come on," he said as he helped her back onto the mattress and eased her down. "Easy."

When she was settled and showed no signs of trying to stand again, the smith sighed deeply.

"Damn it, Arya, you weren't supposed to call my bluff."

He hadn't actually meant for her to try it. He'd wanted her to realize she needed his help, however she may not have wanted it.

"You should make me leave," the girl wheezed out into the pillow. "It's dangerous for you if I'm here."

Gendry wondered at that if he had it all wrong, if she was just pushing him away in an attempt to subvert any collateral damage from her actions. Perhaps she thought that if she made him angry enough, he would kick her out.

"Why? Because someone with your description tried to assassinate the Queen?" Arya didn't respond and kept her gaze firmly on the mattress. "Wasn't her name on that list of yours?"

Arya's continued silence was is in itself a form of confession for what he'd suspected since she'd arrived. He wondered how close she'd gotten. Close enough, he knew, for the Kingsguard to know what her plan had been.

"I don't know how much you remember from those first couple days," Gendry said as he started to untie the strings of the back of her shirt to check on her stitches after her stumble and his catching of her, either of which could have pulled on the sutures. "The Gold Cloaks have already been by looking for you, so they shouldn't check here again. You may not trust me, but this is the best place for you in the city until this whole thing blows over."

Arya said nothing to deny or accept his opinion on her current situation. At least she didn't push the issue, Gendry thought as he began to lift the bundle of linens on her back in sections, careful not to pull too fast in case it had gotten stuck anywhere. He cursed under his breath when he found fresh blood a few wingers width or so beneath her shoulder blades. It wasn't much, but it would probably worsen if not seen to.

"One of the stitches has opened. I'm going to go get Cassella," he said as he got to his feet.

"Who?"

Gendry turned back to find Arya looking up at him with a mixture of confusion and justified paranoia given her standing in that city at present.

"You didn't think I did all this myself, did you? I'm a blacksmith, not a Maester." This justification by him didn't seem to ease her concerns, so he elaborated a little. "She's been treating you since the night you showed up. She hasn't turned us in yet."

Surely, if the woman had kept her silence this long, that would remain the case.

Arya stared up at him a moment but didn't protest, which he took as begrudging acceptance of the woman's help. He turned again to leave but hesitation stopped him in the doorway and he turned to point a stern finger at his charge.

"Don't move."

Arya turned another glare his way. She'd never let him order her around like that if she could stand, he knew. Or if she could throw anything. But, she could do neither of those things and he had to make sure she wouldn't try to wander off while he was gone. They stared one another down for a few moments, a battle of wills with neither willing to give in, until, eventually, Arya breathed a sigh through her nose and nodded as she turned her eyes back down to the mattress, consenting to outside assistance. Gendry grinned for his minor triumph and left to find the healing woman.

* * *

Arya said nothing to Cassella for the brief time the woman was in the smithy again to tend to her injury, and the second daughter of House Stark kept her face angled away from the woman and down at the pillow for the duration as though she feared she might be recognized. Gendry hadn't expected her to act differently and Cassella didn't seem bothered by it. When the stitch was resown, she didn't linger and left with her things, giving Arya the unnecessary advice that too much movement would only prolong the healing process and that she should thus avoid it as much as possible.

The new stitch was still holding firm when Gendry redid the bandages later that night and he was glad. Arya hadn't said a word to him either since the healing woman had come and gone, but that was hardly anything new.

But, perhaps that was one reason why it surprised him so much when, as he finished laying down the new linens over the very large gash, Arya whispered a soft, "Thank you," that he nearly missed in his concentration.

Gendry stilled, his eyes dropping to her profile against the pillow.

"I know I'm not… the easiest person to get along with," the girl added and the smith failed to stifle a small snort of amusement. Arya rolled her eyes. "Alright. Have a good laugh about it."

Gendry couldn't stop himself from grinning as he started tying the back of her shirt closed. 'Easy to get along with' had never been something he'd associated with Arya Stark.

"I just… want to thank you," she continued and he sobered because her tone was earnest. "I know I haven't yet and I just… When I was running from the guards and bleeding out and my eyes were going dark… I knew I could trust you." The smith stilled again because the contrary had been the subject of their argument just earlier that afternoon. "I _do_ trust you, Gendry. …It's you who shouldn't trust me."

Studying this girl he'd once known quite well, the smith considered her words and the resigned surety with which she'd spoken them as he finished tying her shirt closed. Once that was finished, he settled onto against the wall beside the head of the mattress, leaning forward to rest his folded arms across his propped knees.

"Why?" The simplicity of Gendry's tone seemed to catch Arya off guard and got her to look up at him. "Are you going to steal my things and run off?"

She didn't answer this because they both knew it was a ridiculous question that didn't even merit a response. Even if she were able in that moment to leave on her own, Arya was no thief.

"Turn me in for a reward?"

Disloyalty had never been a trait he associated with the young Stark, who had tried so hard to keep their little band together all those years before.

"Gut me in my sleep?"

With a grave tone, Arya cut in on his list of ridiculous things she would never do to hurt him and said, "I'm dangerous."

That, Gendry found, he couldn't deny. There was something… dark in her eyes that hadn't been there before, some shadow always lurking beneath the surface. But, she wouldn't hurt him. The only threat she could pose him in that or any other moment was with her presence in his smithy.

"I've been hunted by Gold Cloaks before." Gendry dismissed easily. "Not the brightest lot."

He, afterall, had been living under their noses for three years and had yet to be discovered. Not that he wanted to be there. This current train of thought, however, did pose him with the best option he'd had in years as a remedy to his situation.

As nonchalantly as he could manage, he posed, "If you're really worried about it, then let's leave."

Arya breathed out a humorless laugh.

"Where would we even go? Back to the Brotherhood?"

Her tone implied very clearly what she thought of that idea. For their treachery, Gendry, of course, agreed with the sentiment. His dream of serving the freemen in the Riverlands and their appointed leader had died the moment they'd sold him to the Red Woman for some coin.

But, the Brotherhood was not who he meant they turn to.

"…I could take you home," he said at length, his tone careful, and Arya's expression turned grim. "Your family has Winterfell again."

A part of him had thought she didn't know. She couldn't, right? She'd been so desperate to get home that he assumed she would run for it when given the chance at last. Her bastard brother had retaken the ancestral home of the Starks and was now King in the North. There had never been a safer time to head there since the Lannister's bid for the throne had begun in earnest with the death of the father Gendry had never known.

Then Arya breathed out a solemn, "I know…" and the dead king's bastard was posed with yet another question about this girl once known to him.

Why, if she knew she could go home, had she not?

"Don't you want to see them again?" he asked.

Arya kept her gaze fixed on the mattress below her pillow.

It confused him only further when she said, "More than anything," in a soft and wistful undertone that implied she had no intent to remedy her apparent and understandable homesickness.

"So, why-"

"There's still work to be done." Her tone was bland, but the haste with which she'd said the words implied a sort of desperation, either for him to understand or to bolster her resolve in the matter.

Gendry cast a glance down over the girl's back and the bandages beneath her shirt, and he thought of her inability to so much as take a step just a few hours previous. Arya hated Cersei Lannister. That much he knew. Now he was even aware that she'd given up a reunion with her family just just for a chance to end the woman's life. But, she was still mortally wounded and the Queen's guard would surely be expecting and working diligently to subvert any other attempts over the next several months to protect yet another new monarch. The 'work' Arya still had in King's Landing would be impossible until the buzz over this attempt had died down and, even moreso, until she had healed, which Cassella claimed may take months.

"You're injured. You won't be storming any keeps in your condition," Gendry said, trying to downplay all of this given this girl's penchant for rash action when her abilities were questioned. "You could go home, at least in the interim."

Arya was silent for a long moment after that, her expression inscrutable despite the searching nature of his gaze. Her thoughts, of course, remained a mystery to him no matter how he searched for clues in her face, so he was left to wait and watch as the girl internally debated everything. For the ungiving nature of her stoic visage, he was apprehensive because this could go any one of several ways ranging from acceptance to outright denial or, as seemed to be her custom now, a refusal to even answer. And he wouldn't know which until she decided to clue him in.

Eventually, with no change in her expression, Arya asked, "What about you? Your smithy?" and Gendry was relieved because it sounded as if she was actually coming around to the idea.

He tried very hard not to leap at the chance that was now presenting itself, the chance to leave King's Landing for good.

"I've never wanted to stay here," he said simply. "I could… come with you. Offer my services at Winterfell or something. I've been saving up. I've got enough for a horse. I could pack up my more valuable things and we could just go. It wouldn't take long. There's not much…"

As she blinked a languid blink, a tear drew a solitary line of moisture down Arya's nose and Gendry was stunned because no sign of emotion had preceded nor followed it. Then she closed her eyes as if resigned to the fact that she'd failed to hide that emotion from the world. Cautiously, the smith reached out to rest his hand on her arm and, when she opened her eyes, she was looking at him. The storm grey of her eyes lacked all emotion despite the visible signs to the contrary. It was an odd juxtaposition that possibly summed her up quite well, he thought.

"Let me take you home."

She just stared at him several moments more in that fixed and stoic sort of way that she hadn't since shortly after her initial waking. Finally, she whispered a single word that belayed the emotion her expression wouldn't give.

"Alright."

* * *

Inside, Arya was raging with herself. When he'd offered to bring her to Winterfell, all she could think was, _Don't do it. Don't do it. You aren't finished here yet. You can't leave._ But, this was all on top of a wave of regret over potentially never seeing her family again, depending on how her mission here went. She and Sansa had always had a strained relationship, but she was still her sister, a sister she hadn't seen in five years. And Jon… She'd never thought to see him again unless she ventured north to the Wall. But, now he was home. He was King in the North, even. He was so close…

The tear fell before she could stop it.

When Gendry offered again and asked not with his voice but with his eyes, Arya couldn't refuse. She had a mission: to kill Cersei Lannister. She had a plan. But, she… Gendry needed to leave King's Landing. Every day he was here, he was in danger of discovery. If she brought him to Winterfell, Jon would accept him there at her word. And she also…

She wanted to see her brother again, at least one more time.

* * *

They had to wait for Arya to regain enough strength to walk. It took a little over a week, but she practiced a little every day-at first with his help, but it was needed less with each passing day-until she could move around freely, if at a slow pace. Gendry went to see Cassella before they left. She gave him instructions on how to make that salve she'd made and sold him the ingredients. To prevent infection from the environment, he would need to apply it a couple times a day until Arya's wound had sealed completely. Additionally, she would need to keep that shoulder still as much as possible for a couple more weeks. She wouldn't be able to ride a horse during this time and her arm would need to be in a sling. To his surprise, Arya agreed to all of this without any assertion on his part.

She insisted, however, against his very vocal protests that they leave the city separately. Gendry had been unable to dissuade her from this course. She claimed they would draw less attention that way. Ultimately, he could do nothing but agree given his only other option would be to throw the girl over his shoulder and carry her out of the city, which would surely draw more attention than their just travelling together. She'd nearly assassinated the Queen. He trusted in her ability to exit the city unseen, whether it be in plain view or through some backwater alley no one knew of.

So, with their new horse loaded with the essentials and his warhammer slung snugly across his back Gendry stood beside a tree just off the path a quarter mile down the Kingsroad, waiting. He waited a long time, a couple hours he estimated by the sun's movement across the sky, and he was more than a little anxious. She'd said she would be a while, but when did 'a while' become too long? With his arms folded across his chest and his foot bouncing on its heel, his attention was fixed towards the city, searching for any sign of the approaching hooded figure that was to be his small travelling companion. The road was busy, both with those arriving at the city and those leaving it, but Arya failed to appear in any of the groups meandering past him. She wouldn't be moving very fast, so he couldn't exactly miss her. Still those two hours came and went with no sign of her. Gendry was a quarter of an hour away from galloping back to the city to begin a fruitless search for her. A thought occurred to him in that perhaps this had all been some ploy for her to disappear, but he dismissed it quickly. She could walk now. If she wanted to leave without his notice, she could've just crept out while he was sleeping.

The light pressure of two taps on his shoulder nearly made Gendry leap out of his skin in his state of anxiety, and the smith whipped around, his hand flying up to the handle of his warhammer.

Arya looked amused, probably by his reaction, but he was so relieved to see her that he didn't even care that her amusement was at his expense.

"Thank the Gods. What took you so long?"

"I had to retrieve something."

This, he hadn't expected. While Gendry was a little miffed that she hadn't informed him she would be making a pit stop before heading to their rendezvous, he was a bit curious about what she would go so far out of her way for in her condition.

"What was it?"

The skinny sword in its skinny scabbard which she drew from within the folds her cloak told him all he needed to know. The blade was one of a kind and he would recognize it anywhere.

Needle.

* * *

 _Additions to the timeline:_

 _Arya heals after failing to assassinate Cersei_

 _Two weeks_


	5. Learning Again

_A.N.: Arya and Gendry begin to make their way north along the Kingsroad._

* * *

They made it only a few miles that first day. Arya, even with the support of a walking stick, tired quickly, but this had been expected. It would have taken them a month to reach Winterfell if they rode the entire way, probably longer with the cold and the weather they would encounter as they traveled farther north. With Arya footbound for a couple weeks, however, and her slow walking pace, it would probably take them that much longer to reach her home.

But, despite the long road ahead, it felt as if Gendry could at last breathe, and this was only partly owed to the clean air outside the cramped walls of the crowded city he'd been raised in. For the first time, he was setting out on something he wanted to do, not something that had been decided for him or something that had been his only option.

He wasn't the only one affected by their diminishing proximity to King's Landing, either. When they stopped to set up camp that first night, Arya glanced back down the Kingsroad and her demeanor shifted ever so slightly. The Red Keep appeared in the distance as though nothing but a toy for a child—a lordly child with lavish gifts but a toy all the same. They were no longer surrounded by the enemy. The smith hadn't even realized how tensely she'd been carrying herself until that tension slipped away as she stared off towards the red spires of the city that wanted her head.

On the cold, hard ground, Gendry got his best night's sleep in years.

* * *

No words had been spoken since Arya had first met him outside the city. At least, no words of conversation. Gendry had never been one for chitchat, but the young Srark kept her tongue like she'd taken a vow of silence. Eventually, it was even too much for him. In the city, he'd had his customers to talk to and then his hammer and the background humming of a city at work to fill his ears in the interim. Out in the Riverlands, there was nothing to be heard but the soft whistle of a breeze through tree leaves and the repetition of their footsteps on the packed dirt of the road.

Silence, he was reminded, could be inexplicably loud.

"I found out who my father was," he found himself saying one night a few days into their adventure as he stoked the embers of their small fire to life.

Arya was silent for a beat and then glanced up at him from the depths of the meager flames as though she'd just returned from some internal ruminations and had only then heard what he'd said.

"You did?"

In spite of her ever distracted state of being these days, there was actual interest in her tone. Gendry nodded as he continued to nurse the fire, poking at it from different angles to get other branches to catch light.

"Robert Baratheon," he admitted and it was the first time he'd ever said the words aloud.

A quick glance in her direction showed him Arya appeared stunned in her own subtle way, her eyes a touch wider and her eyebrows shifted ever so slightly upwards, the only changes in her general stoic expression.

"The king?"

Gendry offered another nod and Arya fell quiet, seemingly unsure of how to respond as she opted simply to stare instead for a time, her eyes fixed on him rather than the fire this time in her contemplation.

She had known his father infinitely better than he in that he'd never once met the man while she had, possibly on several occasions. A part of him wanted to ask her what he'd been like, but Gendry had heard plenty of things from the citizens at King's Landing even before he'd known the truth of his heritage. Most of it was inherently disappointing. The rumors of a drunk and careless King who'd spent most of his time in the company of a drove of women not his wife instead of ruling his kingdom hadn't been what Gendry had envisioned as a child when he'd dared to think of a man he would surely never know.

All the same, he would've liked to meet Robert Baratheon. To what end, even he wasn't sure. To see what he came from. Or to learn about his mother, perhaps—if the King would even remember her, that is—of whom he remembered very little. But, now that avenue was lost to him, so Gendry tended not to dwell on it.

"Are you glad you know?"

Arya's question drew the smith from his thoughts and he looked up from the gathering embers in the fire to find her looking at him still. He held her stare and considered her query a moment, both his answer and the perhaps surprising truth of it.

"Yeah," he said at length. "I am."

Despite all of the bad, there were stories of a great warrior who'd fought alongside Lord Eddard Stark of the North in their rebellion against the Mad King. It was said they won many battles together.

"I hate that I never got to know him, and most of the things I've heard about him… weren't kind, but… It's good to know, one way or the other."

Arya studied him for a moment after he said this, searching for something he wasn't sure of. When she found it, whatever it was, she smiled. Gendry couldn't remember in that moment if he'd ever seen her smile before, but he found it suited her. For just a moment, those roiling storms behind the grey of her eyes eased up just a little.

"Then, I'm happy for you."

* * *

Another week came and went at that slow pace and soon Arya was able to ride their horse, seated behind Gendry with her unslung arm wrapped around his middle to grip the front of his jerkin for purchase. She couldn't handle the strain of the horse's gait for more than a few hours at first, but by the middle of the third week of their journey, they could ride most of the day. Finally, they began to make some real progress north, the grasslands northeast of King's Landing slowly giving way to the forests and rolling hills south of the crags of the Vale.

With her arm finally freed from its sling, Arya had taken to twirling a knife around her fingers to practice getting used to them again. It was a nightly ritual as they sat around their fire. Gendry tried not to stare as she did so, to intrude on the struggles of her recovery, but after a point, when their meal was cooked and eaten and he'd taken care of his business behind a nearby tree and had gathered a little more wood for their fire, there wasn't anything else to do. She dropped the knife a lot at first, her fingers sluggish and clumsy like she'd never held a weapon before, and he thought it might've frustrated her, frequent puffs of air through her nose that had to be her equivalent of growls of agitation. She got a little more adept as the days dragged on but not as much as she'd hoped if her continued frustration—if indeed it was frustration—was anything to go by.

* * *

They stopped at the inn at the Crossroads near the end of their third week traveling. Despite that it was hardly past midday when they arrived, plenty of time to make it a good few miles farther, they decided to stay the night: get some good food, some rest, and possibly see an old friend if he was still around. For the funds they had to preserve, they purchased one room and posed as a married couple to avoid unnecessary suspicion—Arya didn't argue the issue as he thought she would. Hot Pie found them there and was happy to see them and, after the past few years, Gendry was happy as well to see another familiar face that didn't cause him anxiety over the potential of being recognized.

Of course, as he led them to the serving tables, the boy said, "I heard you tell the innkeep you're married! Congratulations, yeah?" and things became instantly more awkward very quickly.

Gendry pulled the boy aside to explain their cover. They had to save up to purchase the proper attire and supplies as they headed north, he explained, furs and hunting equipment and the like, and they'd decided it would be best to share the room to preserve their stash of funds: that which Gendry had leftover after he'd bought the horse and what little Arya had been carrying in her bag when she'd arrived. Mostly, the explanation seemed for his own benefit because he could've sworn that was amusement he saw in Arya's eyes when he cast a glance her way—possibly over how flustered the situation had made him. With a sheepish grin, Hot Pie apologized for the mix-up.

Then he said to the girl, "I was wonderin' why you wouldn't have said nothin' when you was here a couple months ago."

Gendry was confused because she'd made no claim on knowing the cook was still at the inn when he'd pondered aloud about it while they'd approached the Crossroads. Then he turned back to Arya and found she wouldn't even look at him and that could only mean the words had been true. She'd visited the cook, recently, and had known how Gendry would react. The smith had no rightful claim to how this news seemed to cut him, the knowledge that Arya had knowingly stopped by for a visit with their old friend yet had only gone to his smithy in King's Landing when left no other alternative. Her reasons were her own and he had no right to question them.

The hurt remained all the same and Arya wouldn't meet Gendry's eye for the remainder of the night.

Hot Pie, oblivious to any of this, cooked them the best meal Gendry had eaten in his entire life. The smith almost forgot he was upset—not that he could with how he would find Arya looking at him, only to look away when he felt her staring and turned to her. The cook did most of the talking in the moments he was free to step from the kitchen. Mostly he spoke about people of note who'd passed through and enjoyed his cooking over their brief stay at the inn. The list was quite extensive—and most assuredly exaggerated at times despite the boy's fantastic skills in the kitchen.

Arya retired early that evening, claiming a fatigue that was probably real, and headed up to their room and Gendry found his gaze following her retreating form.

"Everything okay?" Hot Pie's question drew the smith's gaze from the door on the second floor as it shut and he found the boy once more returned from the kitchens and sitting across from him. "She seems… slower than she was last time she was here."

Gendry bit down another bout of petty hurt at the reminder and tried to dismiss their friend's concern with a vague, "She's just… injured her back a bit is all."

For his own safety, Hot Pie could never know what Arya had nearly succeeded in doing back in King's Landing. Luckily, he didn't push the issue, seemingly appeased by Gendry's response.

Evening passed and when the boy was finally freed for the night, the smith caught their old friend up on some of what had happened since they'd parted ways: his wanting to join the Brotherhood, his being sold by them to the Red Witch, being set free by a man named Davos, and then taking up in King's Landing. Hot Pie expressed his own amusement that Gendry had been living under the Gold Cloak's noses and hadn't been noticed.

When Gendry finally bid the boy farewell late that night and retired up to their room, he found Arya on the far side of the two-person bed, lying on her good side and facing the opposite wall. He thought she might be asleep, but that was difficult to tell even when he could see her face. Grabbing one of the two pillows on the bed, Gendry set it on the floor and started to settle.

Arya paused him with a monotonous, "Don't be ridiculous," without so much as even shifting to glance his way over her shoulder. "There's plenty of room up here."

Gendry, while hesitant, ultimately complied. It'd been over a month since he'd slept on anything other than the floor or the ground and he couldn't deny how appealing the thought of lying on an actual bed was. That didn't make it any less uncomfortable settling down with his elbow mere inches from Arya's back, ever conscious of her presence so close beside him. Her breathing remained steady, clearly not as unsettled as he with the impropriety of sharing a bed.

And then silence reigned, bringing with it the usual buzzing in his ears that seemed only to intensify as the lack of all other sound prevailed. At least out on the road there had been the whistling of wind to fill the empty space. Gendry shifted, if only to subvert the intruding loudness of silence but for a moment with the sound of friction between his leather jerkin and the cloth of the bedlinens. It worked for a short time.

"I had a mission in King's Landing," Arya said, cutting through the ringing in his ears as it began to grow again, and he turned his head to look at the back of hers. "You weren't part of it. You would've been a distraction from what I had to do."

She was justifying the distance she'd kept, knowing he'd been bothered by it given her deliberate reunion with Hot Pie months before. Gendry swallowed the lump in his throat of something entirely disallowed and turned his eyes back up to the ceiling.

"Is that what friends are to you?" His voice sounded petty to his own ears and he was frustrated with himself, for being upset when he had no real right to be. "A distraction?"

He heard Arya swallow and turned, not having expected this conversation to throw her out of sorts. She always seemed so unflappable now. Of course, she hadn't moved, so he was just staring at the back of her head again, but the tense posture of her shoulders told him she was indeed affected.

"Killing is easier when I don't have the thought in my head that this person, whoever they are, could be missed by someone when they're dead."

There was something in her tone when she said this, some underlying meaning that spoke to the lonely child Gendry had grown up as.

"Is that what I am to you?" he asked, unsure. "Someone you would miss if I was dead?"

Arya remained still in the face of this question and Gendry felt inexplicably exposed even though the question had been posed to her and not the other way around. It shouldn't have mattered, how she saw him. Son of a king or no, he was still a bastard and would customarily be shunned by any born of high social status—not that Arya had ever truly cared about status. Their coexistence had begun as a matter of necessity, not choice, and that hadn't really changed.

Gendry did care, though. After everything they'd been through, he cared what this girl thought of him. She was… different now and he couldn't claim outright that she still cared about him as she once might have. Even if Melisandre had never taken him from the Brotherhood, Gendry would've left Arya. He could still remember the pain in her eyes when he'd made his intent to stay behind clear. And while he still held to his words from then, that they couldn't have been family, he regretted that his decision had hurt her.

Softly, Arya answered his query, and all of his internal musings that followed, with a single, vulnerable syllable.

"Yes."

This admission was a surprising one to hear. Perhaps it shouldn't have been. Arya had been as desperate for companionship as he'd been during their adventures in the Riverlands. But, Gendry had grown up never expecting his life to have any impact on a highborn save for perhaps the steel they carried. It was comforting to know, however, that, whatever had happened to her and whatever she'd become, this girl he'd once known would still care if he died.

He should've left the matter there, been appeased by her answer and let it drop. But, the niggling thought wouldn't leave him alone.

"If you'd succeeded," he pondered aloud, "if you'd killed Cersei and gotten away clean… Would you have come to see me before you left?"

The silence that followed was as much of an answer as her quiet, hesitant words that trailed after.

"I don't know…"

* * *

 _Additions to the timeline:_

 _Arya and Gendry travel north along the Kingsroad towards Winterfell_

 _4 Weeks_


	6. Not According to Plan

_Arya and Gendry continue their trek north._

 _A.N.: I've decided that, for the violence in the next chapter, the rating will be bumped up to M. People don't kill other people with rainbows and kittens. I debated changing the rating for this chapter, if only for the dark nature of a certain memory in it, but I decided against it because I didn't go into much detail in the memory._

* * *

"What is that?" Gendry asked as Arya did another rotation with her sword.

She was moving better now and, despite her troubles with handling a knife, had moved on to practicing with Needle. She held onto the sword considerably more aptly than she had the much smaller weapon of before and that was probably a matter of familiarity with the handle and balance of her favored weapon over other blades, Gendry thought. He failed to see, however, how the swirling, agile movements of the drills she'd been running for nearly an hour that midday had anything to do with combat.

"Water Dancing."

Arya said the words like they explained everything. They didn't. It did look sort of like dancing, though, all grace and constant footwork and motion. There was a surety to her steps and a fluidity to her movements that hadn't been there before their separation. Gendry's thoughts on the matter were twofold in that the style was not a particularly intimidating one to observe, yet he enjoyed watching her go through it, probably a bit more than he should. Neither of these he dared to voice to the 'dance's practitioner, so he turned his attention away and took another small bite of the bread Hot Pie had given him when they'd left the inn that morning, trying to savor the most flavorful loaf he'd ever tasted. His eye kept straying back to Arya on it's own, however.

"What's water dancing?" he asked as she rotated again and lunged before pivoting to stand sideways—side-face, he vaguely recalled—on a single foot.

"An art of the sword practiced by the Braavosi."

Gendry paused mid-chew in his surprise.

"You've been to Braavos?"

It was true, he'd never heard word of her returning home, but to leave Westeros? For a city of bankers, no less?

"Yes, but that's not where I learned this."

The smith made a noise of bewilderment.

"So, you've been to Braavos, but that's not where you learned this Braavosi sword style?"

The question, of course, was rhetorical because she'd already answered it. She didn't bother to again. Gendry was only outwardly musing over the coincidence of it all.

This conversation was, despite its confusing nature, the most Arya had spoken of her past since their reunion. He didn't know what had her feeling so forthcoming, but he wanted to capitalize on it while he could.

"Who taught you, then?" he asked.

Arya slashed as though to parry and then followed the motion of it, swinging herself backwards into a rotation he could never hope to imitate without tripping over his own feet and falling flat on his back.

"Syrio Forel," she answered, and there was a sort of reverence to her tone as she said the name. "The First Sword of Braavos. He was teaching me how to Dance when I was in King's Landing with my father and sister."

Gendry took in this information with a contemplative nod as he swallowed a mouthful of bread. "Is he still in King's Landing, then?"

The smith was becoming more adept at interpreting her silences. That was how he knew, by the grim line of Arya's frown as she continued her drills, that Syrio Forel hadn't survived his time in that damned city. That would explain, he thought, why she'd wanted to go to Braavos: to find another teacher.

"I'm sorry," he said, sorry both for the tragedy and for reminding her of it.

Arya's step didn't falter and Gendry was surprised when she smiled.

"I've already gotten vengeance for Syrio," she said so very simply. "Ser Meryn Trant died over a year ago."

There was a glint of something in her eyes that made Gendry wonder how the man had perished. But, perhaps he ought not to know, he ultimately decided.

It was as he was considering this that Arya moved Needle in an arc over her head. She gasped halfway through and instinct had Gendry on his feet just as Needle was hitting the dirt. He paused in stepping forward, however, as Arya, with her back to him, only drew the arm of her injured shoulder close and shook that hand a couple times before flexing her fingers.

"You alright?" he ventured, not quite sure what had just happened.

Arya kept her back to him and dismissed his concern with a stoic, "Fine," before stooping to retrieve her sword.

She sheathed it as she passed him and ignored his gaze as she retook her seat at the fire to eat. Knowing that prying would get him nowhere, Gendry let the matter drop and sat back down opposite her to finish his bread.

* * *

The last of the scabs had finally sealed and fallen off. The timing was fortuitous because he'd run out of the ingredients for the salve Casella had told him to apply shortly before their stay at the Crossroads. Now that they were away from prying eyes who, if they were to stumble upon them with the wound visible, would be curious where a girl such as herself had gotten such a devastating scar-for that was surely what it would become-it was time for the long process of removing the sutures. For the depth and severity of the former cut and the strain of horseback, Gendry had been told by the healing woman to wait until this point to remove them to ensure the skin and tissues beneath had strengthened enough to go without them. The price was that the sutures themselves would scar now as well.

So, now Gendry went about this task, kneeling behind a bare backed Arya as she held her shirt to her front for modesty and warmth. The smith cringed as cutting through one end of a suture with his knife caused him to pull on the thread, and the flesh that had grown around it, more than he would've liked.

"Sorry," he apologized, but Arya hadn't even flinched.

"How does it look?" she asked instead.

Gendry glanced at her profile as she attempted to look back at him over her bare shoulder.

"You mean this giant formerly gaping wound that nearly had you bleeding to death on my doorstep?"

Arya's eyebrow lifted upwards as the corner of her mouth twitched in the barest hint of a smirk.

"Yes, that one."

Gendry frowned because she shouldn't be finding any amusement in her condition, even if it was only at his expense, and he turned back to his work, moving on to the next suture not far below the blade of her shoulder.

He tried not to let his eyes stray from what was necessary, but they'd been at this for a while already and her back was bare. The number of scars he could see, and the severity of some over others, drew his eye quite often.

"Like you should've been doubled over in pain for weeks," he muttered, thinking of how she'd conversely barely uttered a single grunt of pain since that first night she'd come to him.

Arya actually chuckled and he had to pause and pull back because it made the muscles in her back twitch as he was trying to cut at another suture.

"It wasn't so bad."

The knife slipped at her claim as he set it against the suture again and Gendry nearly cut his finger.

"Wasn't so bad?" he echoed, his tone indignant. "You were dying, Arya. _Literally_ dying."

The girl just turned her face forward and away and, because he could no longer see her face, the smith couldn't tell if she understood just how dire her situation had been.

Then she muttered, "It wasn't the first time…" and Gendry's eyes snapped up to her ear, the only thing he could see of her face now that she'd looked away. "Pain can be managed. There are worse things."

The smith turned his gaze back down and looked over the giant, if certainly healing, wound on her back, with its gnarled raised sections where several stitches had torn and its magnitude and its general _existence_ , and was baffled by both her words and the simple surety with which she'd spoken them.

"What could be worse than this?"

Arya was quiet for a time after this, but he hadn't expected her to answer. It had been a rhetorical question, afterall.

As he turned his attention back to the task at hand, Gendry nearly missed it when she said in a quiet and resigned voice, "I can't feel my fingers…"

He froze as he cut through a suture near the middle of her back and looked back up. He didn't know if he was more taken aback by the news or by the fact that this was the first he'd heard of it. Then he recalled her trouble with handling a knife and how she'd dropped her sword earlier that day and the smith realized that perhaps the information had already been apparent, he just hadn't thought to see it.

Arya was staring down at her lap and Gendry rose up on his knees a bit to see over her shoulder. Her left hand sat open in her lap as she moved her fingers experimentally, flexing them and seemingly testing their range of motion. He wanted to ask if she meant all of those fingers or just a few, but it felt wrong to pry into something so… personal. It didn't stop him from wondering.

It was tragic, he thought. If Arya favored her right hand as most people did then it wouldn't be her dominant hand that had been crippled. With this information revealed, Gendry was impressed she'd been able to handle a sword as well as she had earlier that day, probably relying more on muscle memory than physical sensation.

The smith hesitated because normally he wouldn't. Whenever he cleaned her stitches, he was careful not to touch her if at all possible. There were many reasons why, but the most driving factor was that Arya seemed to have formed herself a nice bubble of personal space in the past few years, closing herself off for what seemed to be the loss of her ability to trust. Of course, there was the fact that her back was bare to the world during these moments, a vulnerability instinct bade them against. But, she seemed particularly averse to touch, particularly skin on skin, so Gendry tried to avoid it.

When he rested a consoling hand on her bare shoulder-the uninjured one-he wasn't surprised when Arya flinched.

"I'm sorry," he said softly.

He didn't let his hand linger long and she relaxed as he drew it away. Arya was silent and still for a moment after, but then her hair swayed gently as she shook her head.

"It's fine," she dismissed.

He still couldn't see her face but Gendry imagined by her tone that her expression was the same as it usually was now, blank and void of emotion, like she'd hollowed herself out to avoid feeling the hurt of it.

* * *

Arya was standing at the foot of the bed, waiting as the Queen slowly woke. She saw the moment panic sank in, the terror of finding that she couldn't lift her arms or turn her head.

"I had to be quite exact with the dosage."

Cersei looked down the length of her bed at her, alarmed and able only to move her eyes.

"Too little hemlock and it's use is mitigated, defeating the entire purpose of going through all the trouble to poison you at just the right time. Too much and your lungs stop working and you suffocate. While I can't deny it would be a pleasure to see you gasping for air, that just wouldn't do. At least not yet."

Cersei disguised the fear in her eyes as anger almost as well as the face of a servant girl shrouded Arya's identity.

"It's not something you can imagine before you've experienced it. The helplessness of it when all you can do is stand by and watch as your life and your future are suddenly relinquished over to someone else. Although I suppose in your case it's 'lie' there and watch." Arya braced her hands on the footboard and steadily kept the woman's gaze. "I want you to know that you're going to die."

Cersei inhaled deeply as her trembling breaths became erratic, giving away that fear she wouldn't and couldn't emote for her pride and the paralytic agent Arya had fed her.

"I'm going to kill you tonight," the young Stark continued. "I was hoping to kill your son, Joffrey, as well. That's not possible now, but you were always second on my list. I can live with that."

From what she'd heard, that boy-king who'd taken her father's head had met a truly terrible fate indeed, and she took some solace in that. She only wished she'd been there to see it when he'd choked on his own tongue.

"It won't be quick. Ser Meryn Trant lived for almost an hour without his eyes and tongue before I slit his throat."

Cersei blinked harshly and she moaned as though trying to call for help. When that failed she choked on a sob which her current condition hadn't permitted her to utter.

"We don't have that much time here, but I'll try to make what little we do have count just as much."

Arya leaned forward to rest her elbows on the footboard as she pulled a knife from her sleeve and began to twirl it idly around her fingers.

"You're probably wondering why. There are so many reasons why so many different people want you dead. I can only imagine, so I'll make it easier for you."

With the woman's eyes trailing her, the young Stark straightened and stepped around the foot of the bed to stand over Cersei, close enough now to easily see the whites of the woman's wide eyes.

"You didn't kill my father, but that monster who did was yours and you didn't stop him. You raised him. You taught him. His sins are yours as much as they were his."

"I know, none of that tells you who I am, not really," Arya allowed as she knelt down with her elbow resting on the mattress and she held the knife aloft towards the woman, pinched between two fingers at the center of its balance, to give her a good look at the freshly sharpened steel that would be her grisly end. "I want you to wonder, every time I cut you with this knife, who I am and why I've come here tonight. I want you to think of every single person you've ever wronged. And when you're lying there, unable to even scream, and you finally realize that, yes, you are going to die, I'll take off this mask and I'll tell you my father's name before I slit your throat and watch you bleed out onto your fancy sheets."

It was so difficult not to laugh at the now apparent fear in the woman's eyes, but Arya managed to contain it to a smirk.

"Shall we begin?"

Of course, she wasn't actually asking permission. So, as Cersei gave another choke of a sob, Arya rose to sit beside the woman on the bed.

She pondered her options then, glancing down over the woman's prone form as she fiddled absentmindedly with the knife, twirling it around her fingers. The first cut would be the beginning of the end, so it should mean something. It should speak more than any but the last, why she'd come there. She'd thought about this moment a lot over the years, what she would do if she ever found herself alone in a room with Cersei Lannister. And as she sat there, thinking back on all the woman had done, Arya found her answer. It was only just that she begin with the night she'd first begun to hate her.

"I know," the young Stark mused as she brought the sharpened tip of the blade up to the woman's cheek, "Let's start here."

Cersei flinched and shut her eyes tight at the sharp contact and her breathing became rapid as Arya dug the knife in just a little and dragged it slowly down the slope of her cheekbone. When she was finished, the small cut that interrupted the woman's otherwise pristine skin with a dark line of bleeding crimson that, while not horrifying to look at, was quite satisfying to inflict.

"Your son gave my friend a cut just like that once before he had his dog run him down. Nothing else may be quite so… personally satisfying, but I'm sure you'll come to realize regardless during our time together just how creative I can be."

And so it went like that for nearly a quarter of an hour, Arya choosing her cuts carefully, picking those points where nerve clusters below the skin would ensure the most pain with relatively little blood loss; she couldn't have the woman bleed out early, afterall.

But as she neared her dozenth cut, Arya heard the echoed clanks of armor plates sliding against each other. The cadence of the rhythm suggested a walking gait, and the sound told her the wearer was approaching in the hall outside the door. She paused to listen and then muttered a curse when the footsteps only continued to approach. She was supposed to have a little over ten minutes more before anyone came in to check on the security in the room. The echo of the footsteps, however, implied the guard was much too close for that time frame to hold.

"Hold that thought for just a moment, Your Majesty."

As the door at the far end of the overly large room opened, Arya tucked herself into the shadows beside a nearby dresser. She regretted that there would be collateral damage, but she would have to kill the guard to ensure her plan continued accordingly. She heard him meander closer, lingering in places as he checked shadows by the silver light of the moon and stars that filtered in through three large windows, but Arya's vantage would be hidden from him, tucked into the darkness beside the dresser and out of sight.

Then his footsteps faltered for a brief moment before the guard hastened forward. Cersei's plight seemed to have caught his eye. He stepped up beside the bed and this was Arya's best chance. His back was to her as she stepped out and the only thing that warned him of her approach was the darting of the Queen's eyes.

The metal hand that caught her blade beside his neck was a surprise and told her this guard had to be Jaime Lannister.

He reacted quickly to her presence and with all the ease of a man who'd been fighting his entire life. The guards out in the hall would at some point hear the ensuing skirmish as Arya's blade met the Kingslayer's metal hand time and again with a clang. The young Stark pushed, forcing him on the defensive and not giving him a moment to draw his sword. But, she would now have to forego her plans for the noise they were making, so Arya decided to pull off her mask. She would deal with Ser Jaime and then tell Cersei her father's name before slashing her throat and making a hasty exit.

Shedding her face and dropping the mask onto the floor also served to surprise the knight enough that he left a hole in his defenses. With a feint to occupy his metal hand, she lunged for his face. He only just managed to catch her wrist with his real hand, the tip of the knife a hare's breath from his right eye. He was stronger, but she could use both of her hands, and so they struggled against one another for victory in this stalemate.

It was the door banging open across the room and the thundering approach of heavy footsteps that ultimately was Arya's undoing. Ser Gregor Clegane had made his entrance, but she had seen in her reconnaissance of the Keep that he was not as she remembered him. He was monstrous before. Now he was just a monster.

It was as she glanced away with dread towards this foe she'd been so careful to avoid that Jamie struck. He hit the knife out of her hand with his metal fist and then punched her stomach with that same fist of metal, knocking the wind from her and doubling her over. Arya was pushed back against the wall then with his real hand around her throat and her only solace was that the Mountain ceased his advance with her capture, pausing a few paces away.

"Who sent you?" Jaime bellowed at her, his grip firm around her windpipe, granting just enough clearance for her to give an answer.

But, when she looked up and he at last got a good look at her face, Arya knew by the stunned look in his eyes and the way his expression slackened in surprise that he'd recognized her.

* * *

Arya had quiet nightmares.

She didn't talk in her sleep. There was no thrashing. There was never any shouting awake or bolting upright. Only subtle twitches and facial expressions along with quietly but quickly drawn breaths as she slept, ending with a soft, forced exhale as her eyes opened.

The dreams woke her every night. Sometimes only a few hours in and on those nights she could usually get back to sleep, if only for a few hours. Other times, the nightmares woke her in the early hours of morning, leaving no time for the potential of drifting off again.

The first night it happened during their new sleeping arrangement, Arya had pulled a knife from her sleeve to stab the arm around her middle until she remembered almost too late that it was Gendry's. She froze, waiting, but the steady rhythm of his breath on the back of her neck told her she hadn't woken him, which she was glad for. She didn't want to refuse to answer another one of his questions, but she wouldn't talk about her nightmares.

Especially this one which detailed her greatest failure.

She didn't know why Cersei's brother hadn't killed her. He'd thrown her through a window and she'd expected to die until she landed on the balcony. He had to have known it was there and all he'd really done was put some space between her and the again approaching tower of steel-encased muscle. For the first time since the Waif had chased her through Braavos, Arya had been afraid as she'd stared into the eyes of the man who had once been Gregor Clegane. For her temporary paralysis induced by fear, the Mountain had gotten closer and had wounded her during her leap from the balcony, slashed her across the back with his sword, and her landing on the balcony below had been excruciating. The room to which the balcony belonged was empty, belonging to the heir to the throne, of which there was none. It was still furnished and Arya had found a cloak in the wardrobe to wrap across her back, biting down on her sleeve as she forced it into the very large gash there to stem the bleeding.

She'd wondered during her subsequent escape through the halls-disguised as a young man so the guards would hopefully not look at her twice-why it seemed as though Jaime Lannister had saved her life.

As she lay on the ground out in the wilderness of the Neck, willing the lingering memory of that night to fade, the young Stark, still a ways from home, found it was strangely… comforting, Gendry's presence at her back. The warmth of his breath at her neck served to temporarily stave off the chill of night and his arm around her middle kept her grounded as the memory of the Mountain's eyes, seemingly rotting in his skull under the shadows of his helmet, remained burned into her retinas to that day.

Unwilling to close her eyes yet with the memory still so close, Arya turned her gaze upwards to the stars. Despite the clouds that blotted them out in places, they were becoming familiar again as she and Gendry moved farther north. They were making good progress now that her back was finally officially on the mend.

Of course, with every mile they traveled, the colder it became and the slower they moved. They'd been forced several days previous to alter their sleeping arrangements such that they could share their body heat. It had been Arya's idea. She'd grown up in the north and the hours before dawn had been terribly cold at rare times even then. Northerners all knew how to keep warm. It was something they were taught in childhood to either survive the Winter they were born into or to prepare for the one that was coming-not that most children who'd yet to experience it understood just how cold it would be. That season had arrived since Arya had left her home and with it came a chill the likes of which that she, a Summer child, had never experienced. He tried to hide it, but Gendry had grown up in the south. He wasn't used to the frigid northern climate. Even as they rode under the sun, she could feel him shivering, however he tried to suppress it and despite the warmer clothing they'd purchased before they'd left the Crossroads.

So, now they slept chest to back under their one blanket, beside and facing their horse for added warmth. Despite his obvious unease with the situation, Gendry had insisted upon the latter, to put her between himself and the horse to keep her as warm as possible. In fact, it had been the only way he would agree to the arrangement at all, which she felt was utterly ridiculous because sharing their body heat would help them survive the trek north. She'd failed in arguing that he would be the one to need the added warmth, given that he'd never even seen snow prior to this trip. Arya was affected by the new arrangement more than she let on. She couldn't deny the altogether not unpleasant feeling of it, almost like an embrace with Gendry's arm around her middle and his warm breath on her neck as he slept soundly behind her.

That in and of itself was a problem because she was supposed to be above the trivial frivolities that had consumed her sister when they were children. She had things she needed to do and this was becoming an unnecessary distraction. Even when they rode now she was beset upon by a series of errant thoughts and feelings as the hours stretched. Having her arms wrapped around Gendry conjured from the recesses of her memory an incident back in Harrenhal in which he'd been hammering a sword without anything to cover his chest. And as she sat behind him on that horse one day with her arms wrapped tight around him so as not to fall off their steed, she could feel the phantom touch of a hand on her shoulder.

Both recollections stirred… something inside her and made her face flush strong as though taken by fever, but this new feeling was inherently different from that time when she was a girl, realizing all at once that Gendry wasn't altogether terrible to look at. This was… stronger and refused to fade and it was ridiculous because it had stemmed from something so minute. If there'd been a layer of cloth between them when he'd set his hand on her shoulder, would she have been spared this aggravating ordeal?

It had gotten to the point where Arya had hesitated to wrap her arms around him one morning until he'd asked her if something was wrong. This was not something she wanted to talk about, so she'd shoved everything aside and held onto him like she had any other day.

But, in those early morning hours when she was lying there awake after another nightmare had interrupted her sleep, Arya was left with little to do but wonder over it all. Most of the time, it only frustrated her, but other times…

Other times it scared her because this had never been part of her plan.

* * *

 _Note: If anyone cares to know, the ulnar nerve was damaged where it roots in the mass of muscle at the base of Arya's neck. Only her thumb, index finger, and middle finger are numb, she just didn't specify. I have no idea if damage of this kind would actually result in something like this, but I couldn't find anything in my research to refute it, so I ran with it. I do hope my lack of knowledge on the central nervous system doesn't offend anyone._

 _Also, because there won't be a time to state this in the story given that Jaime won't be in it, he later claimed Arya had pulled another knife as his excuse to throw her out the window when in fact it was to spare her life for his vow to Catelyn that he would see her daughters to safety. He wouldn't spare her a second time._


	7. Harsh Reality

_Arya and Gendry encounter the unexpected as their journey nears its close._

 _A.N.: So, the rating of this story has changed, but only for the violence at the end of this chapter and the beginning of the next. Minor spoilers lie ahead in this note, so be warned. The main reason for the change is the rape of a village girl in the final scene. There is no graphic detail, but she is raped. If you don't want to read it, just skip the first paragraph of the last scene. Otherwise, the change is for Arya's dark and remorseless approach to killing-of course many people cheered for this at the beginning of the seventh season, so I don't expect it to be an issue._

* * *

It was taking him longer than it should, he knew, but he couldn't help it. He should've had the spare firewood back at their camp already. But, Gendry was fascinated by the snow and just couldn't bring himself to take his eyes from it. He'd seen it on the ground plenty during their trek north and had found it nothing but cold and bothersome. It blanketed the Neck, slowing their path, and required shoveling away before they could build a fire or lay down to rest for the night.

This was the first time he'd ever seen it fall from the sky. There was a sort of cold majesty to the flakes of ice as they drifted towards the earth, light enough that they could change course and be sent adrift in small flurries at the volition of the faintest of breezes. They danced all around him and those that landed on his upturned face tingled as they melted on his skin. With a wide-eyed wonderment he hadn't experienced since the first time he'd seen Tobho Mott craft a sword from a clunky chunk of steel, Gendry watched the snow fall, fluffy, white soldiers taking over everything in sight in a gentle, listless sort of way. And with a childlike curiosity, he opened his mouth to the sky to see what it would be like to catch a flake on his tongue. They didn't taste like anything, he found, but the tingling cold sensation from their touch was quite fascinating.

The deep sound of a large animal's breathing not too far behind him reminded the smith too late that he should've been paying attention to more than just the snow.

Gendry turned with a powerful spike of anxiety that got his blood pumping fast in a single beat of his heart, but he nearly dropped the load of branches in his arms when he found himself facing off with the impossible. Because it simply couldn't be real. They were nothing but myths, tales of monsters in the north to frighten little children. Nothing of that magnitude could possibly exist, not in the real world.

None of this internal nay-saying could disprove the fact that standing just there, not a dozen paces from him, was a wolf the size of a small horse.

It was staring at him, intent, and Gendry's hammer felt suddenly quite out of reach on his back. He probably couldn't drop his burden of firewood and grab the weapon fast enough. The beast would surely lunge and overtake him before he could hope to retaliate. But, perhaps if he hit it across the face hard enough with one of the larger sticks in his arms, he could stun it long enough to pull his hammer.

Then he would just have to kill a direwolf…

Greater men, he knew, had probably perished at the jaws of one of these things, but what choice did he have but to try? Carefully, the smith assessed the width of the sticks directly beneath his hands and felt for the largest, slowly wrapping his fingers around it when he found one that would have to do. He watched the wolf carefully for any hint movement and dreaded the possible implications when he spotted what could be blood below its lip. Arya he knew, despite the fact that he'd never seen her in combat, could handle herself, but fighting a man and fighting a beast such as this were two very different things. He imagined a person might only have time for one swing before it overpowered them and her little blade wasn't intended for cutting through thick hide-more for skewering vital points.

With this thought in the back of his head, Gendry gripped the stick tighter and prepared to drop the rest of his load, an action which would surely stir the beast into motion.

Then Arya said from somewhere close behind him, "Don't move, Gendry," and he nearly jumped out of his skin.

He cursed under his breath, willing his heartbeat to slow.

"Arya!" He breathed in relief. Then her words registered and indignation took its place. "What do you mean-"

"Don't move," she repeated and he felt it more than heard it as she stepped up behind him.

"You can't be serious. This thing'll rip us to shreds!"

"She's just curious."

Gendry had no idea how she could tell this thing's gender because he certainly couldn't see it's privates from this angle, but that was hardly the most important issue in that moment.

"Of what? What her next meal is? 'Cause that's what we'll be if we don't do something!"

"Just trust me on this."

Ultimately, it was Arya's cool composure that got him to agree through inaction. She'd grown up in the north. Perhaps she knew some tricks for losing the interest of one of these things. When the direwolf started to approach, however, Gendry nearly lost his cool, his grip on the stick in the bundle in his arms turning his knuckles white for how severe his hold was. Arya's hand on his shoulder stopped him from acting on instinct to defend them and he held his breath.

And as the direwolf slowly drew in close and sniffed his arms, Gendry very nearly lost control of his bowels, namely his bladder. The beast inhaled a few times, seemingly to catalogue his scent. Then it glanced at Arya and, just as suddenly as it had appeared, the direwolf turned around and trotted off into the woods with an air of casual indifference that was so unanticipated from such a fearsome creature.

Gendry breathed in a deep sigh of relief as he dropped the branches in his arms to the ground at his feet and bent to rest his hands against his knees. It was absurd, he thought, that he hadn't moved once during the confrontation, yet he felt for the blood pumping fiercely through him as though he'd run the entire way from King's Landing all at once.

"First time you've ever seen a direwolf?"

Gendry didn't dignify her question, words lilted in amusement, with a response.

"How did you know she wouldn't attack us?" he asked instead.

"She used to be my friend."

This, he had not expected, and Gendry was so surprised that he momentarily forgot just how badly he needed to take a piss.

"Your friend?"

"Nymeria."

The name was vaguely familiar, tickling something in the back of his mind, but it didn't call to mind any specific memory.

"She protected me from Joffrey once. I had to run her off for it or they would've killed her."

There was a sadness to her tone as Arya admitted these things, but the smile she gave a moment later seemed genuine.

"I'm glad she's found her place in the world. Even if it's not with me."

* * *

That night, Gendry was unable to sleep. Despite that she'd once belonged to Arya and despite the cordial ending to their meeting with the monster wolf earlier, every time he heard a rustle in the wilderness around them, he thought the direwolf was back to make them her feast. No matter how many times that proved to be false, he just couldn't help it.

Any sane man would be tense after standing so close to such a creature.

His arm was around Arya's middle again, a more comfortable arrangement for both of them since it was not wedged between his chest and her back. Of course, it also meant she was settled quite close to him and this only served to bolster Gendry's inability to sleep. The touch of her back against his chest was light, which was good because he was paranoid about jarring the wound there despite how much it'd healed, but the contact was best for sharing body heat. At the same time that same contact stirred in him certain… stirrings that he'd never thought to associate with this once-brazen-boy-girl turned silently-fierce-young-woman. In the moments when he wasn't fearing for their lives, he found he was oddly… content to lie there with her, if only because it allowed him close to her without objection.

That, of course, was when Gendry realized he was in trouble.

Gods, he couldn't fall for this girl. While she denied it at every opportunity, she was a Lady of a prominent house. There was no hope there, even for the bastard son of Robert Baratheon. He was no Lord. He had no lands or claims to any lands, nor did he even want any. He was a blacksmith. He was _happy_ as a blacksmith. He enjoyed the work. Even if Arya were to ever want someone like him, it just couldn't happen, so he resolved that night not to act or think on any of what he'd realized.

The latter proved infinitely more difficult with the focus of his thoughts sleeping soundly against his chest.

The minutes drifted by slowly after that and Gendry eventually stopped listening for signs of a killer wolf in the brush around them and against his own better judgement instead listened to the rhythm of Arya's breathing. Whatever he couldn't allow himself to dwell on, the sound and the steady cadence calmed him.

Sleep was finally beginning to take him when it started. At first, he thought she was shivering, so Gendry tried his best to tuck their single blanket tighter around her without stirring her. It was as he leaned over her to do this, however, that the smith got a look at her profile. Arya's skin was pale, too pale for it to be caused only by the moon's light, and her brow was furrowed, her mouth set into a subtle grimace, as her breaths were drawn in more shallow and more quickly than before.

She wasn't shivering. She was having a nightmare.

Gendry's initial instinct was to wake her, to rouse Arya from whatever darkness had taken hold of her slumber, but, in the end, he decided against it because doing so would only make the dream linger in her mind. The question remained, however, of how he could help. The only other option he could think of was to do nothing and hope the dream would resolve itself, but the thought of just lying there while Arya was tormented by internal demons wasn't something he could endure.

The answer came in the form of a distant, half-formed memory that surfaced from his early childhood. Gendry hadn't thought of it in years. In reality, it was more of a feeling than it was a concrete recollection of any particular incident. He vaguely recalled that, on those nights when his mother came home, she would sing her little boy to sleep. It was one of the only things he remembered about her, actually. He couldn't remember the words to any of the songs, but there was a lingering ghost of a tune in the back of his mind and it was the only thing he had to offer.

He'd never been able to sing, so Gendry began to hum softly, not loud enough to wake Arya but hopefully enough to calm her slumber.

The tune was toneless and broken as he struggled to imitate a rhythm from so long ago. He got it wrong several times and had to pause intermittently to think back. He was well aware that the situation did nothing to ease his own inner torments in regards to the girl in his arms, but eventually Arya's twitching became gradually less severe as her breathing slowed to a more regular pace. Gendry was ultimately relieved in spite of the ache in his chest over the thoughts of a mother he could scarcely remember and the knowledge of his forlorn affection for a girl beyond his reach and his station.

Gendry stayed awake some time longer, keeping watch for any further signs of distress from her. None came, and sleep eventually claimed him as well as the late hours of the night began to bleed into the hours before dawn.

The following morning, Arya looked more properly rested than she had since their reunion, something that pleased him to notice even as he stifled a yawn of his own.

* * *

They were so close now, less than half a day's ride by Arya's estimations. They'd passed a castle along the road. Arya's speechless reaction to seeing it had made him believe they'd finally arrived at her home, but she told him Winterfell was at least a day's ride farther down the Kingsroad.

"No," she'd said. "That's not Winterfell, but we're close. That's Castle Cerwyn. We're really almost there…"

For the vulnerable, homesick quality of her soft and tortured tone, Gendry had kept his attention determinedly on the Kingsroad ahead of them after that, trying to give her a bit of privacy which their seated positions on the same horse couldn't allow.

The nightmares took Arya again that night after they'd stopped halfway between Castle Cerwyn and their destination, still half a day's ride away. The dreams had done so every night since that first time he'd noticed nearly two weeks before. Gendry waited for it now, lied awake and waited until the tremors began, and then he hummed that nameless tune from his childhood until Arya calmed. That night was no different and as he held her afterwards, perhaps a bit closer than the survivalistic nature of their situation required, he allowed himself to wander for the first time what would happen when they finally made it to Winterfell. He probably wouldn't see much of her anymore, an inherently unpleasant thought in and of itself, but a part of him wondered if that wouldn't be a good thing, to let realism take over again and take with it this hopeless infatuation.

A shrill and distant scream cut through his thoughts and the still night air and Gendry jumped, his entire body going tense in an instant as he felt Arya startle and do the same.

She lifted her head just a little and he knew she'd woken, and they both sat still after that, listening to the sound of their own breathing as silence reigned around them. The only thing that kept the smith from believing he'd imagined it was because he wasn't the only one alert for further sounds of distress. Even their horse lifted itself up a bit, no longer prone but lying upright to listen and bolt if anything served to startle it. Still, there was naught but the hush of night and Gendry began to doubt not that he'd heard something but what he thought he'd heard.

"Was it a fox, maybe?" he pondered in a low whisper.

He didn't get a response, at least not a vocal one, but in the silence the whistling overhead was difficult to mistake for anything but what it was. On a singular instinct, Gendry gripped Arya tighter around the middle and rolled onto his back, bringing her with him until she was lying supine on his chest.

With a dull thump, an arrow dug itself into the ground where her torso had been before.

* * *

Gendry had nearly forgotten what such terrible violence could look like. He would've lived a happier life if he'd never been given a reminder. The sight of untrained men—and boys old enough to fight—being slaughtered in an ambush in the dead of night brought back recollections which he would rather be rid of: the massacre of a doomed troop heading north from King's Landing to the Wall.

There had to be at least a dozen men raiding the little village, armed and savage. Gendry doubted there were that many defenders in the small settlement who were actually able-bodied enough to put up a real fight. Placed so close to not one but nestled between two lordly castles, most of them had probably never seen combat, secure in the peaceful nature of their lives as they lived off the land. Most of the men were already dead when he and Arya arrived. Those who remained were being cornered and outnumbered even as they approached to survey the scene from behind an outcropping of bushes outside the village. Gendry hated to admit it, but there wasn't anything they could do for these people. There were just too many raiders. They would have to leave, get help from the northmen at Castle Cerwyn or those at Winterfell-he had no idea which was closer.

Arya didn't agree.

"That'll be too late," she protested, surprisingly calm given the situation. "These people will be dead by then and these raiders will have moved on."

The worst part was that Gendry understood this all too well. But, they couldn't help these people. They would only die trying.

"I don't like it any more than you do, but what are we supposed to do Arya? You're still injured and even with the both of us we won't stand a chance. We have to get help. They won't be able to stop _this_ , but the Northmen can stop it happening to the next village."

"We don't need them," Arya denied again.

Her tone was flat and toneless, and Gendry was indignant as he watched the raiders continue their brutal assault on the little hamlet; one of the last men of the village had just been impaled from behind by a crude spear as he prepared to face down two raiders.

"Wait here."

At these words, Gendry whipped around to face Arya, only to find her standing and turning away as she pulled something over her head.

"What are you going to do?" He really didn't mean to sound so skeptical, but the situation held no hope for a positive outcome. "There are at least a dozen of them!"

"At least."

Even with the carnage in the background, Gendry drew up short because Arya's voice was deeper, far deeper than mere mimicry could allow. It wasn't even her own, in fact, entirely unfamiliar to him. And when she turned, he was stunned to be facing not the young woman he'd come to know but a man with a rough scar running down his cheek and dark, short hair, a few years Gendry's senior. The oddest part—aside from the obvious—was that the man seemed familiar. The scar was quite distinctive, but he just couldn't place him in that moment with so much else going on.

"And they've never faced someone like me."

The scream of another dying man drew Gendry's gaze briefly back to the village to find the last of the defenders had fallen. When he turned back, ready to further argue that they keep their distance from the assault, he found Arya was already gone, disappeared into the shadows.

* * *

Angry, course grunts of exertion preceded her visual of the men and the girl they'd dragged off into a small hovel on the outskirts of the little village. Arya could see them through the frosted window as she crept alongside the structure. A large man with close-cropped hair had his victim pinned to the wall, his trousers down around his ankles as he forced himself on the girl from behind with violent, forceful thrusts. Each shoved the girl—no older than Arya herself, she would wager—into the wall and she whimpered and sobbed around the rag he held around her face. The ends of the gag and her hair were clutched in his fist at the back of her head and his other hand groped clumsily but forcibly at the girl's breast beneath the ripped front of her simple, winter nightdress. The man's apparent compatriot, a slightly smaller man with long, dark hair common to folk in the north, leaned against the door frame several paces back, sharpening a knife to bide the time until his own 'turn' at raping the poor girl.

These men had made a fatal mistake, however, in distancing themselves from the rest of their comrades.

For his position in the doorway relative to her approach, Arya pulled a knife with her non-dominant right hand as she came up beside the waiting man and she reached across him to slit his throat, deep, quick and clean. As his blood poured down his neck the then terrified man fell to his knees, clutching at the long slash in his throat in a futile effort to stem its flow from his open carotid artery. He gurgled, more blood spilling out his mouth, and Arya pulled the dying man out of the doorway to dump him carelessly on the cold ground outside, so she could enter the hut as she pulled Needle with her free, dominant hand.

His compatriot was so busy raping his young victim that he didn't notice any of this happen, didn't even turn as Arya crossed the small room and then drove the narrow blade of her sword up under his chin. The sharpened steel protruded from the top of his skull with a wet crunch and the man released the girl's hair and the gag he'd held with it as he went limp like a doll with its strings cut. Arya pulled her weapon free just before he crumpled to the floor in an undignified, half-naked heap.

The searing pain that ignited in her arm as she pulled steel from bone cause Arya to cry out, and Needle fell from her hand and hit the wooden floor with a dull clatter. She clutched her elbow with her hand and gritted her teeth, a moment later running her fingers along the spaces between the bones of her elbow joint, waiting for the fire to subside.

Damn the Mountain! All but dead and his torture of others wasn't finished! Damn the Queen! And damn the Kingslayer! They could all rot, the lot of them!

It was a small whimper of an exhale that drew Arya from her internal raging against those who had played an immediate role in the crippling of her sword arm. The village girl had slid to the floor and was now huddled against the wall at the young and disguised Stark's feet with her arms over her head, shaking with sobs she which hardly had the strength left to voice.

The fires of her hatred were momentarily stifled by her pity for this girl and anger for the circumstances beyond her control that had led to this moment of terror and violation. Ultimately, it was compassion that had Arya kneeling beside the girl. And after her ordeal, the face of another man, she knew, would only worsen the girl's fear, so the young Stark reached up to remove the mask of a crippled soldier-turned-beggar who'd died of starvation in a dirty alley in the slums of King's Landing.

She didn't touch the girl, even only to put a consoling hand on her shoulder. This girl may never want anyone to touch her ever again.

"I'm sorry this happened to you," she offered instead.

The girl, although still shaken and terrified, seemed surprised enough by the feminine nature of her quiet tone to glance up. Through the dirt and the red splotches of tears on her face and the fact that her expression was contorted by her sobs, Arya could tell she was pretty, sort of like her fair sister in a way with her delicate and even features. It was surely for this reason that her attackers had seen fit to pleasure themselves at her expense.

"I can't undo what they did to you, or to those you love," Arya continued, her voice grim with understanding beyond the immediate situation.

She'd never been raped—not that the threat of it had never been there—but she knew all too well what it was like to lose those she loved to the cruelty of others, even to witness it herself. She knew what it was like to have her life stolen from her in an instant, to be left only with the cold reality that was her only option moving forward: vengeance. This girl was still wading through the worst tragedy of her life, however. She wouldn't be able to see this yet, and when she could she may even deny she wanted it. But, she would have it, nonetheless. Arya would give it to her, the vengeance she herself had sought for so long over so many sleepless nights.

"I can't bring back the dead, but Death will claim these men tonight. That I can and do swear to you."

These words and the promise behind them, how little any of it meant for what had been lost, seemed to offer the girl some modicum of comfort and with the vow spoken Arya stood and bent to retrieve Needle. Her fingers were still trembling as they neared the hilt, however, so she opted to pick it up with her right, non-dominant hand instead. And then she left, bleeding into the shadows as she pulled the stranger's face back over her own, to avenge the girl and this little village that was home to these people. On the wind, she heard the voice of her father, long dead in body but still living through the legacy he'd left behind.

'When Winter comes, the North must look after its own.'


	8. Captive

_Arya and Gendry face a band of raiders on their way to Winterfell._

* * *

She'd probably told him to wait behind knowing it would only make him do the opposite.

Gendry now surveyed the situation from behind a building on the outskirts of the carnage as the women and children who lived there were herded into the center of the village. The men and boys old enough to fight had all been slaughtered already and two of the little huts had been put to the torch. The smith feared what would happen to the children next, a small boy of eight summers and a little girl of six who clung to their mothers. After all, these men had no use for them—dear Gods, he hoped they had no use for them…

"We've half a night left before we oughta' leave, boys, so when you're done gathering the loot take your pick," said a man with thinning hair, his hands resting comfortably on the string across his chest from the bow slung across his shoulders. He stood with his back to the fire, surveying their captives. "These womenfolk now find themselves without husbands and fathers and are in need of some comfort on this cold winter night."

Gendry barely kept himself from charging headlong into the lot of them to kill that bastard then and there. But, they would overwhelm him with their numbers if he did that. However much he hated just sitting there, he had to wait and hope there would be some opportunity to take on just a few of them at a time, thin their numbers a bit.

Just such an opportunity presented itself moments later in the form of two of the men dragging one of the women kicking and screaming into the hut Gendry was currently hiding behind. And with a side door not facing the center of the village, he was able to slip in after them without being noticed.

"Shut the bitch up, would you?" one man asked the other as he reached down to unfasten his breeches. "Hurtin' my ears."

The second man threw the back of his hand across the woman's face. She yelped as she crumpled to the floor and was then quiet, resigning herself, it seemed, to what she thought was about to happen to her.

With a growl, Gendry marched inside and put an end to the situation with a strong swing of his hammer into the side of the nearest man's head, caving in his skull with an audible crunch. He then altered his grip on the weapon in one fluid motion as he stepped forward. The heavy metal collided with the other man's face before he could even cry out in alarm of the intrusion to alert the others and both men dropped dead to the floor of the little hut.

The woman squealed in fright and Gendry motioned for her to quiet, lowering his hammer in a show of his nonviolent intentions towards her. Although surprised and wary of him, she acquiesced, backing away from the dead men when he made no further move, and she tucked herself into a dark corner where Gendry hoped she would remain unseen. Confident that she wouldn't draw attention to them, the smith turned and crept back out to the side of the hut, peering out to check on the situation out in the clearing.

Most of the women were missing now, and the smith hated that he couldn't stop all of these men in time to prevent what was surely already happening to them. By the light of the fires of the burning huts, he saw the man with the bow who'd given the orders before, most likely the leader of this rabble, was glancing around from his place in the middle of the open space between the buildings.

"Anyone seen Bracks and Jeran," he asked.

Gendry thought they may have been the men he'd just killed, but the leader had surely seen them drag that woman off. No, he had to be talking about some other men.

Of course, the smith wasn't the only one out to stop these raiders.

"Aye," responded one of the few men still gathering their bounty—what looked to be food and other supplies pilfered from the village. "They found themselves a ripe young lass. I reckon we won't see them until morning."

The leader gave a chuckle in response that made Gendry want to bash his head in more that he already did, his grip tightening around the leatherbound steel of the warhammer in his hands.

"Lucky bastards."

"They're dead."

This new voice drew Gendry's attention, and everyone else's, to the roof of a hut close to the center of the village where there stood a man. It was Needle, already crimson with blood, that reminded the smith that this man with the scar on his face was somehow Arya; even after seeing her change right in front of him, he couldn't fathim it. Moreso, however, he was concerned because she was holding the weapon in her right hand. Her left had to have been giving her trouble.

"I killed them," she said in a voice not her own.

When the raiders' leader stepped forward, he was no longer smiling.

"What's your name?" he asked with a snarl. "I would very much like to carve it into your chest after we remove your head."

"No one." Arya's response was said so very calmly despite the numbers against her.

There were still five men out in the open, five more by his count in the huts but within earshot. Arya didn't seem bothered in the slightest. In fact, the look she leveled on the raid leader nearly had Gendry soiling himself and he was on _her_ side

"To you, I'm just a stranger, passing through. You're all going to wish I wasn't."

And with that menacing overture, not-Arya turned and disappeared over the back of the roof, melting into the darkness as though she belonged to it. The leader motioned to a few of his men, clearly not taking her threat seriously.

"Bring me that bastard's head!" he barked.

Three men hurried off to comply, drawing their weapons as they went. They left Gendry's view one by one as they rounded the hut Arya had disappeared over, and the smith turned on his heel to make his way around, on his way to assist.

He drew up short when the screaming started. Not the scream of one man being butchered by several but the screams of several men being butchered by one. The noise of it drew several men from within the huts, weapons in hand, and the leader drew his bow and nocked an arrow.

Then, all at once, the screaming stopped and everyone was left waiting. The silence that followed was so singular that it seemed just as loud as the noise that had preceded it and Gendry sat crouched beside that hut, his eyes wide and his breath loud in his own hears as he gripped the hand;e of his warhammer. The tension of the group out in the clearing was palpable.

They all readied their weapons as footsteps approached and out of the shadows beside the hut shuffled one of their men, covered in blood spatter that didn't appear to be his own. He seemed to be in shock, his eyes wide but vacant and his steps listless. Then his steps faltered. He lurched forward as his knee buckled when his foot hit the ground and he fell face-forward into the snow and mud. The knife in the back of his head made Gendry wonder how he'd even walked at all.

Then Arya, still wearing the face of a stranger, bled out of the darkness and into the firelight and Gendry forgot all about the man's dead march. The raid leader loosed his arrow, but she seemed to be expecting this because not-Arya simply stepped aside to evade it. Gendry took the opportunity of everyone's distraction with her to head out into the fray himself. The last man to join his fellows, stepping out of a hut along the smith's path, was met with a solid hammer swing to the chest that caved in his ribcage. The man gave a wheeze, unable to actually scream as all of the air was forced from his lungs, and Gendry shifted the hammer in his grip to ram the head up into the man's chin. There was a crunch and the man crumpled backwards, blood dripping down his chin from where he'd bitten the tip of his own tongue off.

"Aye, there's another! We've got ourselves another fight, men!" cried the leader.

Gendry glimpsed two of the remaining six men spread out to flank Arya as their leader readied another arrow and leveled it at her. The other three men charged at the smith, however, and forced him to turn his attention away. These odds, he could certainly manage, but the clang of steel on steel across the way was distracting and his split focus nearly allowed the first man to cleave his face in two with an axe. Even so, Gendry nearly lost his nose as he tilted back. He caught the next swing with the long hilt of his hammer and shoved the blade aside, throwing the man off balance in turn. He stumbled away and Gendry ducked and turned beneath the slash of the next man's sword, using the momentum of the movement to bash the man's face in.

The third man tackled him from the side as Gendry tried to reverse his swing to clobber the first man. They both hit the mud and the smith's warhammer was too long to get in a proper swing with the ground at his back. Of course, he was able to slam the head of it down on the man's hand with plenty of room to spare. The raider cried out and drew back, clutching his broken knuckles and fingers. This move left him open in other areas, something he would regret very quickly. Gendry actually pitied the man as he shoved his warhammer into his groin with all the force he could muster at the odd angle. The poor man's cries of pain turned to high-pitched screams and the smith silenced him by gripping his hammer by the head and throwing it against his face hard enough to crack his skull.

It was a mercy, really. Not that his compatriots saw it that way.

The man with the axe was already stable on his feet again as Gendry shoved the now dead man off of him. That axe was in the air even as the smith was hefting himself up with the added weight of his warhammer, straining to get it up in time to block. His attacker cried out, however, and lurched as though struck in the back by something, and he clutched at his shoulder as the axe fell from his hand. Gendry glimpsed a knife in the back of his shoulder as the man pitched forward, just out of reach of his groping hand.

Arya wasn't looking their way when the smith glanced over, but the knife had to have come from her.

* * *

The knife did its job, stopped the man's attack.

For her distraction, Arya failed to completely dodge a slash by one of the two men circling her, but she didn't hear the crunch of bone as an axe was buried in a skull. The small cut on her arm was more than worth that.

They'd taken turns trying to catch her off guard, but their footsteps were loud and their breathing always gave them away. The man to make her bleed just moments before seemed to take this successful hit as a sign that they were wearing her down because he lunged from behind, aiming to run her through as his ally crossed in front of her in an attempted distraction. The attacker's foot in the mud was an audible tell to his foolish eagerness, however, and a mere sidestep at the last moment put his sword in the open space between the arm of her free hand and her side.

Arya grabbed his wrist and, although her left arm was injured, her grip was firm. She yanked him forward to force his focus on keeping his balance and stabbed him through the arm. He screamed and dropped his weapon and the other man charged, hoping to save his ally from her. Arya pulled Needle from her victim and parried the incoming man's first strike, then his second, then she ducked into a rotation to avoid his third, an overhead slash. She pulled on the arm still firmly in her grip and threw the man into his compatriot. They collided and Arya stabbed the already injured man in the back of the knee as his ally pushed him aside. She was out in the open now, however, so she pulled the still standing man forward in front of her. He raised his shortsword to attack, unaware of what exactly she was doing.

He froze when his leader's arrow pierced his chest, intercepting a shot meant for her. He looked down at the metal sticking from him in shock and dropped his weapon.

The strain of throwing the last man and then forcing this one between herself and an arrow strained Arya's already aggravated arm and she stumbled for it, blinded momentarily by the pain that surged through the appendage. But, she couldn't linger. She shook her head to clear her vision and pushed past the now dying man, setting her sights on their leader behind him. He seemed just as surprised by what had just happened as his man had and only when she moved for him did he regain the presence of mind to reload. He wasn't able to nock the arrow in time and she barreled into him, pushing him back into the wall of a hut he'd moved near in trying to get a clear shot at her. He dropped his bow and swung a fist at her, but Arya ducked under it and then jammed Needle's hilt into his lower back, jabbing his kidney. The blow stunned the man for a moment, made him double over in pain, and she pushed her forearm into his neck. She readied Needle but didn't end him just yet.

She had a question to ask before she killed him.

The man clutched her shoulder, however, and then Arya felt a biting pain in her left side, under the arm she had against his throat.

"Take that, you bastard!" the man spat with a wicked grin for his perceived victory over her.

Arya took a few heavy, ragged breaths through the initial burst of pain but kept her arm firmly against the man's throat. A glance down revealed he'd attempted to stab her with an arrow, but it had already lacked the force of a drawstring and the shaft had slipped in his hand while the shot to his kidneys had weakened the attack of a man clearly past his prime.

"What's your name?"

The man's grin wavered a bit in lieu of his confusion over why she would ask such a thing in that moment, when he'd supposedly just landed a fatal blow against her.

"Ellion Bailer."

His tone was unsure, though he tried to remain visually confident.

"Well, if you want to kill someone by stabbing them in the chest, Ellion Bailer, you need to be more precise about it."

The man's grin wavered further.

"You haven't even punctured my lung, haven't even poked it. After getting through the fur and leather, I reckon the arrowhead is now stuck on my ribs. Now, you could push until you break them or pull it out to try again, maybe get enough force behind it this time to cut through. But, the fastest way to the heart is between the fourth and fifth ribs. Slip a blade through there and you go straight for it," she said as she placed Needle at his chest.

Ellion Bailer's eyes went wide as she pushed on the blade, forcing it slowly between his ribs, and fear and dread took hold of his expression against his will.

"Like this," she growled, baring her teeth as she continued to ease Needle deeper into his chest cavity, twisting the blade as she did so just to add to the pain of it.

He coughed up blood when the thin sword punctured his lung and he struggled for breath, both as his lung began to collapse and as his own blood filled his throat and began to choke him. Arya saw the moment he realized he was going to die and she gave Needle a forceful wrench, causing him to splutter out a strangled cry that speckled her face in his blood.

"Winter is here and the North takes care of it's own," the young Stark said with a snarl and it was her father's voice she heard over that of the stranger's she spoke with. "You would've done well to remember that before you attacked this little village!"

Ellion Bailer lurched and spit up one final mouthful of blood, and Arya knew Needle had punctured his heart. She dug the blade in a couple inches more, pulling on that familiar place of rage in her own heart that was never far out of reach as she watched him expire in agony and terror.

"You bastard!" a yell came from behind, accompanied by a limping gait coming nearer—the man she'd crippled before.

Arya turned, pulling Needle from the now dead man's chest, and parried the final man's overhead slash as his leader's body crumpled to the ground behind her. But, before she could end the last man herself, the head of a large hammer flew in from the side and smashed into the man's skull with a squelching crunch. The man's now limp form was thrown aside from the force of the blow and he flopped down into the mud underfoot with a wet slap. He didn't get back up.

Gendry stood beside where the raider had just been, hefting his large warhammer up into a sure two-handed grip, and assured of the man's death he turned her way.

"I'd tell you you should watch your surroundings, but I'd be a bit of a hypocrite if I did, wouldn't I?"

Arya smirked and felt herself breathe out a laugh. But, she was ever aware of the fact that she didn't appear herself as well as how it had unnerved Gendry when she'd changed. She'd seen it in his eyes when she'd turned back to look at him after she'd put the mask on, so she preferred to speak in front of him no more than she had to and she kept the stranger's face turned away from him.

"Thanks, by the way," the smith continued. "That guy probably would've had me if it weren't for that knife."

Arya offered a nod as her response to his gratitude and then turned away entirely. They needed to address the survivors of this raid. They would need shelter and they would no longer find that here in a place littered with the corpses of their departed loved ones. A few women were still huddled together in the center of town. Others were making their way out of the huts now that the sounds of fighting had ended, cautious of which side had prevailed in the skirmish.

"You're hurt!" Gendry said in alarm.

"It's nothing," Arya dismissed in a voice not her own.

His hand on her shoulder stopped her.

"It's not nothing. There's an arrow in your side!"

With a grimace and a grunt, Arya wrenched the offending arrow from her side and tossed it to a stunned Gendry, who dropped his hammer with one hand to catch it merely by instinct. She could breathe just fine, so the arrow hadn't punctured her lung. The pain in her side where it had been was more than manageable, more of an irritation, really. They had more important matters to attend to.

"Now there's not."

And so she left behind the smith she'd rendered speechless to face the women and children of the village.

The sight of them was difficult to take in. Some of them bled from various injuries. Many of them had been violated in ways they may never entirely recover from. All of them were broken.

"We're going to Winterfell," Arya declared loudly, gaining their wary and weary focus as they drifted together. "The Starks who live there will take you in."

She could see Gendry's confused, slightly inquiring gaze through her periphery as he stepped up beside her. The young Stark could have, after all, simply removed her mask and assured these women through her name that they would be welcome in her home. But she didn't. She conveyed the sentiment through the face of a man who had no claim to the words he was speaking. Gendry, on some level, had to recognize that this was a conscious choice, not merely her forgetting who she appeared to be but rather the utilization of that very fact. And she couldn't look him in the eye because she knew he wasn't going to like what was to come. He may even hate her for it.

"I know you've all been through the worst kind of tragedy tonight," she continued, ignoring the imploring gaze of the man beside her. "I can't undo any of it, but we can take you away from here, somewhere safe. Some of you, perhaps most of you, may find you don't quite care right now what happens to you. So, if you won't live for yourselves, live for your children if you have them. If you don't have children, live for each other. The long night has arrived. We're all going to need each other long before this winter is over."

She looked the group over, gauging their reactions but finding little.

"Will anyone come with us?"

Save for the crackling of the fires from the burning huts, it was silent after that, the night air frigid and still. The silence reigned long after the vapors of her breath had dissipated into the sky as all of them stared at her and none spoke or moved. None, that is, until a familiar girl near Arya's age stepped forward, wrapped in a worn cloak to ward off the chill of the winter night and to conceal that which her now ruined dress would not.

"I'll go with you," she said, and although there was no alleviation in her words, there was a kindling of fire in her eyes, what could be the low burning coals that would grow into a determination for some sort of purpose, much as it had begun for Arya.

It was silent again after that, but that silence was broken much sooner as a woman stepped forward with her young son clutched at her side.

"Aye. As will we," she said, grim, but she added, "But I want to return. To bury them."

And after that, one by one, each of the women agreed and Arya was relieved. She had feared at first that some, if not all, of them would rather die in that place than leave.

"I wouldn't ask you not to," the young Stark said in the voice of the man who's face she wore.

These people had every right to bury their dead just as their dead had every right to be buried.

"We'll take the carts," she decided a moment later, inclining her head towards the two little carts the raiders had intended to use for their getaway. "It will be a cold ride. Bring what you can to keep warm. We should reach Winterfell by morning."

The women agreed. They turned away to gather their things for the journey, and that was when Gendry tried to confront Arya, saying her name in a hushed but insistent undertone to keep the matter private. But, she knew what she wanted to ask, and it wasn't something she was willing to discuss.

Mostly because she feared he may be able to change her mind.

"I'll go fetch our things and our horse," she diverted. "I'll ride beside the carts and scout ahead. Start helping these women gather their things in the carts."

"Arya-"

"Please."

She hated how much, even in this stranger's unfamiliar voice, it sounded like she was begging, not for him to do as she asked but for him to do as she didn't and drop the issue. She sighed and struggled to swallow, finding she couldn't look at Gendry for more than just the mask she wore.

His voice was resigned when he replied with a somber, "Fine," and he walked away to start unloading the carts.

Somehow, Arya wasn't appeased, and she headed off into the woods to fetch their supplies and their horse.

* * *

Sansa was woken by the guards an hour before daybreak. A small convoy, she was informed, had arrived from a little village to the south. Two traveling men had carted in nearly a dozen women and a couple children, claiming there had been a raid in the night and that these were the only survivors.

Now the acting Lady of Winterfell made her way out to the frozen courtyard inside the gates to investigate the matter further and to deal with whatever needed dealing with. Behind her, Lady Brienne trailed, ever dutiful and diligent despite the early hour. They descended onto the grounds to find it a dreary bustle of weary activity. The last of the women of the raided village were being assisted from the open wagon by an unfamiliar dark-haired man in padded clothing of rough fur patchwork as the few guards in the area handed out thick cloaks to help warm the refugees after their journey.

There were no other men and no boys, Sansa noted with a swell of compassion and grief for those who remained, for it could only mean none had made it out. The somber, shattered air of the group only served to further emphasize this loss of loved ones. Some women wept while others looked too spent by emotion to express anything anymore, grim and vacant. A couple women carried small bundles in their arms, bundles which inspection revealed were the forms of sleeping children.

Grim, Sansa approached the nearest guard.

"Have these people brought into the keep. Start the fires and bring them food, and send someone for Maester Wolkan to meet them there to check them over for injury."

The man bowed with a cordial, "Yes, my Lady," and then headed off to do so, asking the women as he approached them to follow him to the Keep where they would find warmth and food.

Behind lingered the unfamiliar man who'd reportedly escorted the women from their village, looking as though he felt entirely out of place and wasn't sure what to do with himself. Missing, Sansa found, was the second man her guards had informed her about.

"Lady Sansa," a guard puffed out as he approached, his cheeks blotchy and red for the frigid temperature in the early hours before the sun rose. "We have a situation."

"I thought there were two men who escorted these women and children here?" she inquired of him first and the man turned his eyes down in apology.

"Aye, my Lady, that's just the problem. The other man, we… we can't seem to find him. He's disappeared, my Lady."

Gods, it was too early for this.

"Before or after they were let inside?"

"After, my Lady. You have my sincerest apologies. We were so busy with… everything that we didn't even notice…"

Sansa groaned internally, nearly outwardly. Why couldn't these things ever happen when the sun was already well in the sky?

"Wake the rest of the guards and start them searching. If you find this man, bring him to the dungeons for questioning."

"Yes, Lady Sansa," the guard said with a terse nod, and he scurried off to follow her instructions.

"Is this the man who was traveling with him?" she posed to another guard, indicating the uncomfortable man who still stood by the wagons.

"Yes, my lady. According to the refugees, the two of them arrived in their village at the same time to fight off the raiders."

Sansa studied the man in question as she took in this information with a pondering, "I see…"

He looked up, sensing her gaze, and straightened when he seemed to realize who she must be. This matter had to be settled before she could tend to their guests, so the acting Lady of Winterfell approached him, Lady Brienne an unyielding sentinel at her back while a couple of Winterfell guards trailed behind them. The man began to fidget with his hands as they drew nearer, an earnest sort of nerves about him. Behind the dirt and the scruff of his week-old beard and the dried blood on his face—clearly not his own, for there was no source—she dared to think he had kind eyes.

But, this could be deceiving. It was a harsh lesson she'd finally managed to learn. The head of the hammer on his back was still splattered with the dried blood of men he'd killed just that night. It was true, he and his comrade had reportedly intervened to save lives, but it proved in the least that he was adept at killing. His motivations for killing those men were an important distinction to suss out where his presence in Winterfell was concerned, not to mention those of his missing companion.

"What is your name?" Sansa asked the man as she and her guards joined him at the wagons.

"Gendry, milady," he responded with a respectful nod.

He'd given no family name, whoch meant he either didn't have one or it was one he wasn't inclined to share. If it were the latter, he could belong to a rival house and may therefore pose a threat. If it were the former, which his use of 'milady' suggested, then he held the eye of a Lady far more comfortably than any commoner should be accustomed to.

"And why have you come to Winterfell, Gendry?"

He ran his hands together again, supposedly to warm them, but there was an apprehensiveness to the action that belied his uncertainty.

"I'm a smith, milady. I came to offer my services to the King in the North."

"And your friend?" Sansa asked. The man seemed anxious at this and glanced around as if seeking some assistance which didn't come. "Why has he come?"

"I'm afraid that's… difficult to explain, milady."

Sansa studied the man a moment more then turned to nod to her guards. They flanked him in a heartbeat and seized his arms. Gendry the smith struggled at first, an instinct of capture, but stopped fighting against them the moment next, possibly for fatigue after the long ride to Winterfell. But, no matter how tired he might be, the smith seemed surprisingly calm.

Was it part of some plan to get this man captured?

Regardless, there was nowhere else to put him. But, Sansa would keep guards at his cell at all times.

"Bring him to the dungeons."

Gendry seemed honestly surprised by this order from her, a reaction that only confused any plan she could fathom on the part of him and his missing ally.

"But, we saved those people!"

Sansa stared him down, unwavering in her decision.

"By killing more than a dozen men by yourselves. You're dangerous."

"We haven't come to hurt anyone!"

Again, she found a sort of kindness in his eyes as he insisted on this point and there was sincerity in his tone. But, either of those things could easily be a mask for darker intentions.

"You'll understand if I cannot take your word on that," Sansa replied simply and then turned to the guards. "Take him."

Gendry didn't put up a fight as they pulled him away and Sansa watched them go, wondering what potential trouble had just come to her home.

* * *

 _A.N.: They've finally arrived at Winterfell, but with a twist. I'm not entirely happy with portions of this chapter, but I need to stop staring at it._

 _Additions to the timeline:_

 _Arya and Gendry travel north along the Kingsroad towards Winterfell_

 _8 Weeks total_


	9. Unable to Rest

_Sansa searches for the intruder in her home._

* * *

The missing man had not been found yet. With the refugees given places to rest and a vow of protection from Winterfell should they choose to remain, Sansa made her way down to the dungeons. She found the man, Gendry, sitting on the cot inside the dark and dreary cell, bent forward with his arms on his knees and a hand rubbing at the back of his neck, most likely still stiff from riding. When he at last heard the approach of Sansa and her Lady-knight, he looked up and then stood in eagerness. Sansa stopped in front of the bars of his cell, her gaze hard and daring.

"I will ask you this only once," she said. "If you do not tell me, or if you lie to me, I will have no choice but to assume you are a spy or at the very least that you brought one to my home for some action which I can only speculate about. You would do well to answer me and to do so honestly."

Gendry rubbed his fingers over the pads of his thumbs and continued to hold her eye with less timidness than a man of his station ought to, a curious thing.

"Your question, m'Lady?"

Sansa lifted her chin a bit, challenging him to defy her.

"This man who was traveling with you, who is he?"

The smith glanced away briefly and continued to fidget with his fingers.

"I'm sorry. He said I was only to speak to your brother."

"The King in the North is not here."

This news seemed to surprise Gendry who, if he was a spy, either let his emotions show very clearly or was doing an applaudable job of trying to trick her into believing he was reacting a certain way. Of course, if they were after Jon it was possible his unanticipated departure would serve to throw off the assassins sent for him.

"I suppose you'll just have to tell me, then."

The claimed smith stood there a moment, considering this, then offered a nod of agreement.

"He's… not a he," he said with such simplicity.

Sansa didn't let show that she'd already been given information of that very nature. It was best to let him flounder in trying to get her to believe the claim, set him off balance and see if he would slip up.

"It's your sister, milady. Arya."

And then her confusion faded quickly into anger.

"My sister is dead. Do not insult my intelligence with fanciful claims. You may only see me as a silly girl, as others have done, but I am no fool. Even if she were alive, my guards say that man who arrived with you was exactly that. A man."

Gendry seemed earnestly abashed and if he was acting at any of this, he was ceaselessly convincing.

"I'm sorry. I never meant to insult you, milady. I only… I don't know how she did it. One minute, I was talking to Arya and then she was… Even her voice changed. I can't explain it. I can tell you that she's very much alive."

Again, there was nothing but honesty in his words and Sansa began to consider that he at least believed he was telling the truth.

"Are you trying to claim this is some sort of magic?" Sansa continued to play herself offended by his claim of his comrade's gender to see if he would keep up a ruse or crack and reveal himself a liar. "Prey on my hope that my missing sister could still be alive after all these years, so you can get a reward for her 'miraculous' return?"

Gendry shook his head, eager to refute this.

"No, m'Lady. I… She found me in King's Landing a couple months ago and she…" His eyes went distant a moment, looking back on the past, Sansa suspected, and when he spoke, his words were a bit softer. "She wanted to come home, so here we are."

Sansa remained silent a moment, her expression still its cold mask as she pondered over all this man and the girl from the village had told her.

"She wanted me to tell your brother…"

Gendry hesitated once again and the acting Lady of Winterfell found her patience beginning to run short.

"Tell him what?"

The smith from King's Landing shifted once more and rubbed his fingers over the pads of his thumbs again as he glanced briefly away. He met her eyes again, however, still with that same surety that continued to baffle her.

"She wished they both could've been here for the burial."

* * *

"This is a bad idea, Lady Sansa," Brienne cautioned, drawing the acting Lady of Winterfell to a halt not far from the entrance to the crypts where the smith had hinted they would find their intruder. "That boy's tale was ridiculous. We shouldn't believe anything he has to say. Even if the message he conveyed is to be believed and this stranger is in your family's crypt, it is most assuredly a trap.

Sansa held the woman's troubled gaze with steady surety.

"I spoke to one of the refugees, she said. "She claimed it was a girl who saved her, not a man, but it was two men who brought these women here. No one has seen this mysterious girl since."

Brienne shifted, unsure.

"I don't understand, my Lady."

Not many people would.

"Have you heard of the Faceless Men, Lady Brienne?"

Brienne's uncertainty only increased and this was entirely understandable.

"Ghost stories, more like," she declared. "Tall tales of men and women able to steal and wear the face of another like a mask. I can't imagine it'd be very convincing"

"Until several months ago," Sansa refuted, her expression grim, "we thought the White Walkers were nothing but stories," and these loaded words landed with their intended effect. "What if there is truth to this as well?"

Brienne stared a moment, silent in earnest contemplation.

"No one has seen Arya in years," the acting Lady of Winterfell continued, "not since you found her traveling with the Hound. She could be anywhere. She could be dead. Just because this person told that smith her name is Arya Stark doesn't mean she _is_ Arya. He said she found him in King's Landing. Arya wouldn't return there, not after everything that happened. She would only be in danger."

She trusted the smith, Gendry, wholeheartedly believed that he'd brought Arya Stark to Winterfell, but anyone who didn't know Arya personally might believe any girl of similar age who claimed to be so was the lost Stark daughter.

"Regardless, " Sansa continued, "someone dangerous has come to Winterfell. Be on your guard, Lady Brienne. If we are dealing with a Faceless Man, we probably are walking into some sort of trap. They are, after all, assassins."

"Then let me investigate for you, Lady Sansa," the self-rejected knight implored. "If this person means to do you harm, you should keep your distance."

"Except she didn't come here for me," the acting steward of Winterfell reminded her. "She came here for Jon." Her voice was firm as she declared, "I want to know who sent her."

* * *

The fire from the torch Lady Brienne held aloft revealed a figure standing in front of the statue carved for the grave of Sansa's lord-father, and the Stark daughter felt anger burn in her chest for the gall of this intruder. The hood drawn against the chill of the crypts concealed all manner of identity, but the patchwork furs similar to the those of the smith in the dungeons proved that this was their missing visitor. Poking out from beneath the stranger's thick cloak was the end of a scabbard, a strangely thin one, at that. The weapon didn't appear to be drawn, however, and Sansa took that to mean they at least wouldn't be attacked on sight.

"You're trespassing," the acting steward decreed boldly. "No one is allowed down here but the Starks of Winterfell."

The voice that spoke, though not in response to Sansa's words, was certainly female, as both the smith and the village girl had claimed, but was unfamiliar.

"It should've been carved by someone who knew his face."

The presumed assassin didn't turn as she said this, and Lady Brienne pulled Oathkeeper a couple inches from its scabbard in warning as she demanded, "State your name, stranger."

"I've had many names." The girl said as she continued to look up at the statue of Eddard Stark. "Arry. Weasel. Night Wolf. Mercy. _No One_." This last one seemed to be a play on Sansa's words because there was a touch of amusement in the voice, but she didn't understand the joke. "But you, sister…"

The stranger turned at last to look their way and dropped her hood to her shoulders. It took a moment, but Sansa finally began to reconcile the small girl from her memories with the young woman standing in front of her. And it took her breath away because it would seem this stranger was no stranger after all.

"You know my real name."

The smith, it seemed, had been telling more truth than she'd given him credit for, more even than she'd ever dared to hope for and Sansa was stunned speechless because this wasn't an outcome she'd even considered, that the girl who'd helped him kill over a dozen raiders was actually her younger sister, long feared dead.

She'd matured, no longer a small child, though she hadn't grown in height as much as she may have liked. Her hair was a bit shorter and she carried herself differently, with a confidence that was so different from the overbold aggression of her youth, owing somewhat to that strange sword which rested so very comfortably at her hip. Moreso, she was more stoic than Sansa ever remembered her being and something about it seemed so much more… dangerous than the little girl she'd once been, yelling her threats loud and lashing out at the littlest provocations. Now, she was still and collected, her eyes shrewd, and something about her was so much more terrifying.

But, she was Arya and she was home and Sansa felt moisture collect in her eyes as her throat closed in on itself. Gods… Five years was such a long time.

"Last I knew, you were in King's Landing," her sister said.

Sansa regained control over the swell of her emotions, relief and joy chief among them, and cleared her throat.

"I could say the same of you," she quipped. "Except, my lady Knight tells me differently." Arya glanced over Sansa's shoulder at the woman in question, recognition and a subtle curiosity in her eyes. "She's told me she found you traveling with the Hound." Sansa allowed humor into her tone as she added, "And that you were dressed as a boy. I can't say I was surprised. You always did prefer breeches to dresses."

Arya grinned in humor and Sansa caved. With a smile and near to bursting with joy, she hurried forward and pulled her long lost sister into a hug. Whatever the circumstances of their youth had been, they were past that now. They were Starks and they were family. There had been too much tragedy to breathe life back into silly childhood grudges.

Arya was rigid in her arms as though unaccustomed to and uncomfortable with human contact and something in Sansa broke for her little sister as she wondered what had happened over the years to isolate her as much as the reaction suggested. But, she returned the embrace in time, still rigid but trying not to be.

"Everyone's saying you were a man when you came here," Sansa said as she pulled back but with her hands still on her sister's arms. "As much as people struggled to tell before, you couldn't pass for one now. How did you manage that?"

Perhaps it had been so dark that everyone had simply been mistaken, had seen someone wearing breeches and carrying a sword and assumed, but they'd seemed so sure.

Arya's smile turned a touch apologetic as she offered a vague, "It's… a long story."

Of course, it had to be, didn't it?

"I can understand that." Sansa's words were loaded with the weight of so many things from her own experiences. "A lot can happen in five years."

"Yes, it can," Arya's words held a similar weight. But, then there was a subtle light in her eyes. "I think father would be proud of you. The Starks have Winterfell again."

"They do," Sansa agreed and there was pride in her voice. "I didn't do it alone, though."

Arya grinned again, although hesitantly, and her cautiously hopeful eyes flitted over Sansa's shoulder. She seemed to be expecting someone to join them and the eldest Stark sister knew without asking who that someone was. She felt a pang of sympathy for not only Arya and dropped her hands to her sides.

If she'd arrived just a few days earlier…

"I'm sorry. Jon's not here."

Arya met her gaze again and was visibly disappointed, although the expression seemed subdued, not as ostensible as Sansa had expected it would be. More than anything, it was in her eyes.

"He probably won't be for weeks."

She gave an apologetic smile, knowing how close her two siblings had been before Jon had left to join the Night's Watch.

"If he were here, there's no way I would've beaten him down here to see you. He was happy to see me again, but when he sees you, I think his heart might stop."

This seemed to help her sister's spirits but not much.

"Someone else is here, though," Sansa pushed onward and Arya became curious despite her melancholy. "Bran is home too."

Her curiosity melted into a surprise she conveyed openly, seasoned with a subtle surge of eagerness for a reunion with another lost sibling.

"He's… different," Sansa cautioned, however, knowing she had to forewarn her sister about their brother's… condition. "Knows things he shouldn't, things no one could possibly know."

Arya's brow dipped again.

"What do you mean?"

"He says he has… visions."

There wasn't really a way to describe what their brother had become, nor could Sansa explain exactly what it was that he did, not with what little cryptic information she'd managed to get from him. But, he and Arya had always gotten along. She would surely want to see him regardless of his lost sense of self and Sansa wanted to believe that, however much he'd detached himself from who he was, Bran would want to see her too.

"We could go wake him. I'm sure he wouldn't mind."

Eagerness flitted through Arya's expression again, but she seemed to decide against it in the end.

"No, I- Someone would see me," she said. "I don't… want the others to know. Not yet, anyway. There's something I still need to do, something that requires anonymity. It's best if no one knows I'm still alive yet."

This, Sansa certainly hadn't expected, although it did explain the cloak and dagger nature of their arranged reunion.

"What is it you need to do?" she asked.

Arya held her gaze for a moment and there was regret in her eyes. "I can't tell you that." Her tone carried the apology she didn't voice. "It's… best if you don't know, just in case."

Sansa felt her brows furrow as worry began to constrict around her chest for her long lost sister.

"Just in case of what?"

Arya glanced away and shifted her feet before responding with a quiet, "In case I fail," which only increased Sansa's concern tenfold.

"Arya, what are you talking about?"

"She's going to kill someone."

The ever-tranquil voice of the husk that was their brother sounded from a short ways down the corridor and a shiver ran down Sansa's spine as she turned to find him wheeling himself towards them on the mobile chair Maester Wolkan had crafted for him. His eyes remained on their returned sister in that same fixed way he looked at most people now when he knew something about them from his visions. Sansa was about to laugh off his claim that their sister was out to murder someone, but she saw when she turned back to Arya, whose stare was locked with their brother's, that there was truth in the words.

Somehow, during this reunion, she'd managed to forget that her sister had arrived at Winterfell in the wake of a raid that she'd reportedly played a key role in ending.

"Bran…"

There was relief and joy in Arya's tone and expression, but there was also a tension there as she stared Bran down, apparently finding truth in what Sansa had told her about him. He knew something about her that made her uneasy. That much was plain to see. Arya swallowed and turned her eyes away for a moment in some hesitation Sansa couldn't understand for her lack of information on her situation.

"I was an idiot," she said at last as she turned back to him, holding Bran's unnerving gaze as if in defiance to what he thought he knew. "That was the only reason I failed in the first place."

"What are you talking about?" Sansa cut in, fed up with being the only Stark present who was on the outs in this conversation. "Kill someone? Arya-"

The look in her little sister's eyes when she looked her way drew the acting steward's questioning up short because there was… a darkness there, one that certainly hadn't been there in her youth no matter how wild she'd been.

"I came back to Westeros for one reason," the youngest Stark daughter said with that same darkness in her tone, "to get justice for our family. I wasn't going to come home at all."

"You came back to see Jon," Bran declared in that same flat tone, drawing Arya's gaze again.

Her eyes softened a bit with a resurgence of somber dejection and Sansa knew the words were true. She had always been so fond of Jon…

"Yes," she said, "I did. And he's not here."

"He will be," Sansa offered softly.

It was likely their best shot to get her to stay: Jon's impending return. Arya had just come home. She couldn't do that only to leave, and not just because they hadn't seen her in five years and had feared her dead long ago. With the army of the dead marching on the Wall, they would need every able-bodied fighter on their side.

And Arya, it seemed, although Sansa had yet to see it herself, had become just that.

"You said it could be weeks before he returns," Arya countered. "It could be longer, even, and I can't wait that long."

Silence fell between the siblings after that and Sansa considered how different her sister had also become during their separation. She'd always been stubborn, but now she seemed particularly singular in her motivations. It was possible that nothing anyone said would change her mind.

"Okay, so… What about after you've done that," the eldest Stark present postulated, trying to force her sister out of the little box she seemed to have made for her life-for someone who'd always craved freedom, she didn't seem to notice how she'd trapped herself in this quest of hers. "After you've gotten vengeance for our family? What will you do then?"

The silence that followed was telling and her expression further claimed that Arya hadn't even considered anything she might do afterwards.

"I don't know…" she admitted and for a moment she looked lost and unsure, almost like she was still a small child with thrown suddenly into an unknowable future. "I was never very good at being a Lady. That life just… isn't for me."

"You can be what you want to be."

Sansa turned and felt a pang of guilt because she'd forgotten the Lady of Tarth was even there, standing ever vigil at her back. She would certainly be one to understand diverging from tradition.

"I have a feeling no one could keep you from whatever that is."

Arya's small grin seemed unbidden because she looked down and away as if to hide it.

"Regardless," she said as she turned back, her expression carefully schooled once more, "there are things I have to do first."

Sansa knew then that they wouldn't change her mind.

* * *

His hammer was sitting against the wall outside the cell, with the guard, and Gendry had to remind himself that he wouldn't need it. He wasn't terribly fond of cells, though.

After his last tenure as a prisoner, he felt his anxiety could be forgiven and entirely understood. But, as far as imprisonments went, this stay wasn't terribly terrible so far. It was cold, but he suspected that wasn't likely to change much anywhere in the north during winter. The cell could certainly have been smaller and they'd given him food. It may have just been a bit of bread, a couple days stale, but there wasn't a hint of mold to be found. He had no reason to be concerned about his situation, not really. The Lady of Winterfell would reunite with her sister and he would be set free because, no, he did not bring a spy to the north. He just wished they would hurry up because the allure of an actual bed was just about more than he could bear.

Gendry was failing to get a little bit of sleep on the gods-awful cot in his cell when he heard the approaching scrape of armor plates and he lifted his head to find that very Lady approaching with the large woman in armor still trailing behind her. He stood, hoping the situation had been cleared up and that he would be set loose.

The Lady of Winterfell turned to the guard at his cell and said, "There's been a misunderstanding. You are relieved of your watch. Go, get some rest."

Both the guard and Gendry were relieved for their own reasons.

"Aye, thank you, my Lady," the man said with a bow and he set the key to the cell in her waiting hand before heading off, likely for the barracks.

"Did you…" Gendry hesitated because mentioning Arya's… transformation had angered her before, but it was the truth, however difficult that truth was to believe. "Did you find her, milady?"

Arya's sister looked at him as she approached the door to his cell to unlock it. He wondered if stoicism was an inherited trait.

"I did," she said but offered no more.

The door clicked open and Gendry was about to inquire about the sisters' meeting when the Lady of Winterfell pulled the door open and stepped aside, looking back as though having opened it for someone. Out of the shadows behind the tall woman in knight's armor stepped Arya and Gendry was relieved to find she looked herself again. She looked to her sister as she passed her and the woman gave a nod before turning to walk off down the corridor with her guard, leaving the two of them alone.

"I'm sorry," Arya said, looking dare he say abashed. "I didn't think she would arrest you. She's… less trusting than she was before. Although, perhaps I should say 'less naive'. It did look suspicious, I admit."

Of course, he understood as well why her sister had seen fit to lock him up when an unknown man-as far as she'd known-had gone missing inside the Keep. The part that was still in question, however, was why any of it had been necessary.

A part of him already knew. He just didn't want to admit it.

"You're free to go, though," Arya continued. "I've cleared it with my sister. She'll show you around."

But, Gendry couldn't keep ignoring the facts right in front of him. Facts like the pack slung over her shoulder and the delegation of showing him around her childhood home to her sister. He'd suspected it in the village, when she'd kept her identity from the victims they'd rescued.

Arya had never actually planned on returning to Winterfell.

"You're leaving."

She didn't answer, but it wasn't actually a question. She held his stare for a long moment, her expression unreadable as it ever was.

"I don't know if I'll be back."

Gendry's chest felt tight and he wished he'd pushed the issue back in the village, tried to convince her not to do whatever it was she was planning that she knew he wouldn't like. He should have tried to stop her then because now she already had one foot out the door and getting her to reconsider at this point would be impossible.

But, he couldn't not try.

"We just got here," the smith argued. "Your family lives here. Your sister, your brother. I know she said he's not here now, but he'll be back. You looked for your family for so long and now you're just going to leave?"

He couldn't keep the hurt from his words. She was leaving him too, after all.

Arya continued to stare in silence and Gendry suspected this would be yet another question she refused to answer.

Then she confessed in a battered whisper that made his jaw clench for the ache it caused in his chest, "I can't sleep."

And he couldn't just offer a vague placation that this would get better because he'd seen first hand how she was tormented every night, even five years later.

"It's been better for a few weeks, but…"

If Gendry thought it might change her mind, he might've confessed that this was because he'd hummed to her every night. But it would only embarrass her to know he'd been witness to her weakest moments. She may even want to distance herself from it, from the reminder that she was, in fact, still human no matter how many years she'd spent fashioning herself into a weapon of vengeance.

"I remember it all," Arya continued. "I remember every word. Every expression. Every… horrible thing that's happened. All of it comes back to me when I sleep. It's been five years… I have to kill Cersei, if not for my father than to keep the rest of my family safe."

She turned to leave then and Gendry stepped forward, desperation driving him.

"I could be your family too."

Arya paused in the doorway of the cell, but she didn't turn back to him as Gendry stepped up beside her. Her eyes were fixed on where her hand rested on the iron door frame as though she were determined not to look his way, and the smith wanted to reach out, probably to turn her to him but mostly just to touch her, to remind her that there were still people alive who wanted her to stay with them.

To tell her she didn't have to live for the dead.

"Don't go."

The words came out softly and like a question and Arya turned at last. Her eyes were sad, and it was some of the only emotion she'd allowed past her mask-not the literal one she'd worn the previous night, but the figurative one she put on to close herself off from the world-since she'd found him in King's Landing. And that look ripped Gendry's guts right from him because he knew what it meant.

She wasn't going to stay.

Arya released the jail door frame to turn his way properly and Gendry found himself stilled by surprise as she drew closer, lifting herself up on her toes to wrap her arms around his neck in the first contact she'd initiated since their reunion. She held herself against him and he stood there stunned a moment before he kicked himself in his proverbial ass and told himself to return the embrace while it was still offered.

And as he held her, it felt like he was shattering and being held together all at once.

She lingered and he certainly wasn't going to be the first to pull back, so they stayed that way for longer than was surely proper.

But, she had to let go sometime and they both knew it.

"Goodbye, Gendry," Arya said softly, her breath ghosting over his ear and neck and then she released him and drew away.

As she stepped out into the corridor, he pondered aloud, "Do you really hate Cersei Lannister that much?"

Arya paused, but she didn't turn and she didn't answer. She just continued on through the dungeons and Gendry could only stand there, watching her walk off down the dungeon corridor to the exit.

She didn't look back.

* * *

 _A.N.: I know it may seem like it, but no, the story is not over._


	10. Obligation

_A.N.: I finished this a lot sooner than I thought I would, so here it is: Chapter 10._

* * *

Jon had seen them. A creature called the Night King and the army of the dead that was supposedly marching to the Wall. It was why he'd left, to secure an alliance with the Dragon Queen who'd come to Westeros, so they might fight this new, yet also very old, enemy together.

Arya didn't want to believe any of it, but Jon had never been a man who lied, even to a fault. It had to be true, no matter how difficult it was to believe.

This was the reason she was hesitating, standing beside her horse a few day's ride from Winterfell and staring down at the Valyrian steel dagger Bran had given to her upon her departure from their home. Her siblings, namely Sansa, had told her many things in the crypts, one final push to get her to remain. Jon had faced a few White Walkers during his tenure as a man of the Night's Watch, had fought in a battle at a place called Hardhome where hundreds had been slaughtered by the army of the dead. Sansa was preparing the Lords for the war heading their way and the people for a long winter they hoped they would be alive to struggle through afterwards.

But, Jon was on his way to White Harbor where he would find a ship to sail to Dragonstone. The army couldn't be that close, not if he was willing to leave their home.

So, Arya was going to finish her mission. She would be smarter about it this time when she went after Cersei Lannister. There would be no warning, no chance for an interruption. The woman would die, now by this dagger which had been sent in the hands of an assassin to kill her brother shortly after his crippling. Then she would return home to fight with Jon against the nightmare in the north. With this decided, she put the dagger away, got back onto her horse and continued down the Kingsroad, ignoring the voice in the back of her mind that warned her she may not return in time before an army of dead men marched on her home.

She was unaware of the knight trailing just over a mile behind her, bound by honor and a new vow to locate her and to ensure she made it home.

* * *

Sansa found him at the forge, as expected of a smith. He was sharing the space with Winterfell's resident blacksmith and was assisting in forging training weapons for the North's civilian forces. His hammer paused before a strike when she entered and he set it aside when she asked to speak with him. Podrick, her new shadow in Brienne's absence, stood by the door outside, watching for anything amiss in the courtyard that may indicate danger to her—he may not have been the most excellent of fighters, but he was very diligent in his duties.

"Have you heard of dragonglass, master smith?" Sansa asked Winterfell's new blacksmith, needing an idea of what uses he would pose for the coming war.

The man pondered for a moment before he offered a somewhat unenthusiastic nod.

"Only once or twice, milady," he admitted. "I've never actually seen it and I couldn't say I'm familiar with it, but I've heard of it."

That may just have to do, Sansa decided with an internal sigh, because their other smith had given a similar response. It was unlikely they would find anyone who knew already how to handle the material. Until the threat of the White Walkers had been legitimized, dragonglass had been used only for adding decorative flair to standard steel weapons-much in fact, like the dagger her brother had given to Arya before her departure with its handle of gold and dragonglass.

"If my brother's negotiations go well, we'll need to make a considerable number of weapons from it, all very quickly," the Lady of Winterfell informed their new smith. "How do you fare when handling unfamiliar materials?"

The man seemed less unsure as he responded to this query.

"I'm a quick study, milady," he said and she marveled at how it didn't sound like a boast of his skills, just a stating of fact. "It shouldn't be a problem. Weapons, you say?"

"Yes. A considerable number."

"Well," the smith pondered aloud, glancing up as if to recall past information, "if what I've heard is true, dragonglass is a brittle, so making anything like a sword or an axe would be a challenge. But, it could be used to make smaller weapons quite easily, I think. Arrowheads, daggers, spearheads. That sort of thing."

This limitation wasn't altogether concerning. Ranged weaponry would be preferable to swords in the battles to come for their combatants who had never known the horrors of battle and daggers could be used on those walking dead who managed to get close enough for striking distance. It was said by Jon's contact at the Citadel that a single stab by a weapon of dragonglass was enough to kill even the more powerful of White Walkers, so they at least had that going for them.

"I'll start work on them as soon as we get the materials."

"Good. Time is not our ally in this war. Quantity will be preferable over quality. If it can pierce flesh, it will suffice."

"Aye, milady," the smith agreed, "I'll keep that in mind."

Sansa gave a satisfied nod, pleased that he would be of use after all. But, she found herself lingering despite the fact that her official business with the man was concluded.

He took notice of her hesitation and asked, "Is there something else, milady?"

Sansa took a moment to gather all of the many questions that had been circling around in her head for the past few days and eventually settled on one which she knew this man would be able to answer.

"My sister…" she began and Gendry's mouth drew into a solemn line as he for the first time during this conversation dropped his gaze out of something other than thought. "Where did you meet her?"

"In King's Landing." His tone was as grim as his expression.

That much, however, had already been revealed, although Sansa still had no idea why her sister had returned to that godsforsaken city.

"I meant originally," The acting Lady of Winterfell clarified her query. "Before the events that brought you here."

Gendry gave another nod and met her eye again.

"Aye, milady, the answer's the same."

This response peaked her interest right away.

It was the first real bit of information she'd had regarding her sister's missing years which she hadn't already known from her Lady Knight.

"You've known her for five years?"

Gendry shifted on his feet and clasped his hands behind his back as if to conceal the fidgeting of them.

"Not exactly, milady. We met when she fled the city. She was disguised, dressed as a boy, see, and we were all supposed to be taken to the Wall. I suppose she was being brought to your brother, or maybe they hoped to drop her off here. But, we were attacked by Gold Cloaks and things just sort of… spiraled from there. It's rather a long story. I'm not sure how long, exactly, we traveled together. I reckon it was more than a year, but we… got separated and I ended up back in King's Landing. That's where she found me a couple months ago."

Sansa took this information in with a pondering, "I see…"

She had already suspected that Arya had gone unseen in King's Landing by disguising herself as a boy; she'd already been mistaken for one so much during their childhood that it would have been a simple matter. She wanted to ask about those spiraling events, but what she really wanted was to hear about them from her sister. What she did know was how it all ended, with Arya, now reportedly an able-bodied fighter, leaving Winterfell to kill someone she would't name.

"You traveled with Arya for a couple months to get here."

It wasn't actually a question, but Gendry nodded to confirm the statement anyway.

"In that time… what was your assessment of her?"

The smith seemed confused by this inquiry like he'd never been asked to share an opinion before but also as if he couldn't understand why she would ask this about her sister. Perhaps he thought she would be one to know already.

But, her sister was not a person she recognized, her differences so stark that Sansa was reminded of how altered their brother too had returned.

"My… assessment, milady?"

"Yes," Sansa confirmed. "I suppose, what I'm asking is… do you think she's dangerous?"

The man stared a moment then nodded.

"Aye, milady. She's dangerous," he responded simply. "She's all… fire and ice now. A cold sort of burning for revenge. To be honest with you, she killed most of those men that night, the raiders who attacked that little village. She scared the s-shi-" The smith's words stuttered to a halt as he stared at Sansa a moment, clearly embarrassed for his near use of foul language in her presence, and he finished the thought with a fumbling, "-boots off me."

If it weren't for the topic of conversation, Sansa might have found his flustered state amusing. But, there was nothing funny about what the world had turned her sister into. The Lady of Winterfell had known more than her fair share of cruelty over the years, but the only person whose blood resided on her hands was her late husband, a monster masquerading around in human skin. Their father's execution had seemingly set Arya on a path of blood and vengeance—Bran had mentioned a list of people her sister wanted dead—and Sansa loathed to think the monsters she'd encountered on her own journey from King's Landing to drive such a need for murder, to hunt and kill them with her own hands even before allowing herself to return home. Some part of her knew that those clues which had hinted that a Faceless Man had come to Winterfell had not been false, that her sister was that person so trained in subterfuge and dealing death. They had the bodies of over a dozen men and the testimonies of the survivors to attest to both accounts.

The question here was whether Arya's circumstances had sent her too far over the edge, a thought which pained Sansa deeply.

"But, she always used to talk about coming home to her family," Gendry continued, drawing her mind back to present matters. "She's not a danger here," he declared with heartfelt belief.

Then that grimness took hold of his expression again as he looked away and Sansa knew her sister's departure bothered him, possibly even hurt him.

"Or… she wouldn't have been, anyway."

* * *

"Do you know where she's gone?"

This questions from Arya's sister drew Gendry's gaze back to her and he shifted on his feet under her intense scrutiny.

"Yes, milady, but… it's not for me to say."

"Tell me," she demanded of him and the smith turned his eyes down, heaving a sigh.

This, he knew, was where she would threaten him with the dungeons again or the stockades unless he told her and this was exactly why the Brotherhood Without Banners had appealed to him so heavily: the entitlement of the Lords and Ladies over their people as if mere chance of birth gave them the right to decide the fates of others on a whim.

Then Lady Stark said, "Please," and her tone was earnestly imploring and it was so surprising that he met and held her eye again. "She's my sister. I haven't seen her in five years and she's just disappeared again from my life… I'm worried about her. I implore you to tell me what you know."

The concern was clear in her expression and her tone and Gendry swallowed hard. It would've been so much easier to decline to answer if she'd claimed station over him. But, the concern of one sister for another… he envied them that bond and he couldn't just push it aside. At the same time, however, he couldn't betray Arya's trust. She'd only come to him when given no other choice, but she'd trusted him all the same. She'd literally put her life in his hands. If she hadn't told her sister of her plans, there was a reason.

But, perhaps there was a way to tell one sister where the other had gone without saying so much as to break the trust of that other sister.

"She's gone back to King's Landing, milady," Gendry answered at length. "She has some… unfinished business to handle there."

This surprised the Lady of Winterfell, cracks in her porcelain mask that were displayed unbidden.

"Why would she come all the way here only to go all the way back?"

Gendry swallowed thickly and beat down that internal instinct that bade him to gather some supplies, steal a horse, and ride long and hard until he caught up to one of the only friends he'd ever had, one of the only people to ever give a damn about him personally. It was the same instinct he had to fight every time he looked south.

But, if what he'd been told was true, how could he just leave, even if it was to follow Arya? If the dead were coming for the living, he couldn't just sit by while others went to fight for him. He'd put his fate in the hands of others for far too long.

All the same, he had asked himself the Lady's same question a lot that first night. He hadn't actually planned on going to Winterfell, not until Arya had showed up on his doorstep. He'd been planning to go somewhere small and out of the way, possibly in the Riverlands but probably further south in the Rainwood or perhaps even Dorn now that winter had arrived. He hadn't wanted to serve another Lord. Honestly, the only reason he'd gone to Winterfell at all had been because of Arya.

But, he knew now. He doubted it was the only reason, but Arya had brought him to Winterfell. She'd known the Gold Cloaks would kill him if they'd ever discovered him, so she'd spirited him away to her family, all while she was still healing and unable to attempt another assassination—which was clearly no longer the case, as those raiders had been unfortunate enough to discover.

He found the Lady of Winterfell watching him carefully when he looked at her, unable to voice to her the answer he knew of. But, a moment later, her eyes widened a fraction as one of her well-manicured eyebrows arched upward just a little. He thought in that moment that she knew what he did, that the only thing to come of her sister's visit was his presence in their home. He expected questions, inquiries as to why her sister would go so far out of her way for him—not that he could really give her those answers because Arya was difficult to read at the best of times and her motivations were kept solely her own.

Without another word on the matter, however, the Lady of Winterfell bid him good fortune and took her leave from the smithy, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

His hammer struck iron a little more fiercely for the remainder of the day.

* * *

The air was still and so devoid of all manner of sound that it felt when she closed her eyes as if she was back in the catacombs beneath the House of Black and White. It had been welcome back then, particularly when she'd been without her sight. The still of the air and the silence made it all that much easier to know when someone was approaching.

But, here, in her childhood home where there had always been activity of some kind, the stillness of everything just felt inherently and fundamentally wrong.

No children ran through Wintertown amidst a bustle of village people carrying out their daily tasks. No guards manned the walls that surrounded the keep or the open gates which were supposed to bar unauthorized entrance. There was no one training in the courtyard with sword or bow. The main hall was vacant of anyone partaking in meals or diplomatic matters. The cooks were missing from the kitchens.

Winterfell in its entirety was empty.

"Hello?"

Arya's voice was loud in the unnatural hush of the world as it echoed down the vacant halls of her home which should have been alive with activity, and nothing stirred, even after she'd spoken.

"Is anyone there?"

There was no reply.

Every room she checked was just as vacant as the last. There were no signs of struggle to be found anywhere. Everyone was simply… gone, like they'd left and never returned.

Eventually, she found her way up to the ramparts and looked down over the barren courtyard within the walls of Winterfell, hoping she would have missed something or _someone_. It was just as empty as before. But, there was a pull that drew her attention back, beyond the walls of her home, so Arya turned to look out across the wide open field to the north, bordered by the Wolfswood on the west.

And with a gasp, she stumbled back into the parapet behind her, her eyes wide in a very real terror. And in that moment, she knew. She'd never actually felt fear before, not when it was compared to this.

There were thousands of them.

The prone shapes of dead bodies littered the field far out into the fog of winter and surely beyond. In mortified awe, she was unaware of her own actions as she stepped up to the parapet that directly overlooked the carnage, her hands braced on the cold stone as she struggled to reconcile with the utter magnitude of what she was looking at. There were women and even children among the dead and there were shattered shields and broken weapons and _so much blood_ darkening the snow. The air was rank with the stench of iron and she could even taste it on her tongue.

God…

Movement caught her eye as one of the nearby bodies began to stir. At first, Arya thought someone might still be alive and she was relieved, ready to run out into the slaughter to help. But, there was something… not quite right about the way the body moved as it began to rise. Its limbs were both sluggish and jerking as though it was forcing the issue of standing through broken bones.

Another body nearby followed suit as if stirred by the rising of the first, then a dozen more, and the inhuman movement cascaded out across the field in a ripple of what she realized with utter horror was the rising of the dead. Even from her perch atop the wall Arya could see the glowing blue of its eyes when one of the bodies turned and looked at her and, one by one, every single standing corpse did the same, a sea of icy blue turning to face her. Arya backed away, every instinct telling her to run, but she bumped into something that was decidedly not stone and she turned.

Jon…

He stood there with her on the ramparts of their empty home, wearing armor and a thick fur cloak fit for the king he had become. But, his skin was pale, pale because his blood was no longer in him. It was all over him. There were jagged cuts on the left side of his face, rending wounds which had pulled the flesh from his skull and left it to hang loose. His eyes glowed with the same blue that looked up at them from the field below.

Arya stood there, unable to move and feeling as though her heart may implode in grief and agony as the body of her brother reached out to grasp her throat with cold fingers that were firm as iron, even in death. He pushed as he stepped forward, walking her back slowly towards the ledge behind her. There was no rage in his expression, no show of any sense of betrayal for her leaving.

In fact, Jon was looking right through her as though he didn't recognize her at all and that was the worst part of it. She'd wanted to see him for so long, to see his smile again, yet now he was nothing but a husk who wouldn't even think twice at killing her.

Her lower back hit the edge of the parapet and Arya readied herself mentally for the fall into the horde of the dead waiting below as she was slowly tipped backwards.

It seemed she was going to pay for her sins sooner than she'd thought she would.

Then Jon's walking corpse dissolved into a wind that wasn't there. A hand caught her arm to keep her from falling back, and Arya's eyes snapped to the newcomer, her adrenaline pumping with a fright she loathed to feel. Her nerves settled instantly into relief.

Bran, alive and well was… was _standing_ beside her with a calm smile.

When Arya was again steady on her feet, he dropped his hand to clasp it in his other behind his back, and then her brother walked— _walked_ —past her along the ramparts.

"Walk with me," he said in a voice that was tranquil and without worry as though he had just invited her on a leisurely stroll.

Arya could only stare after him a moment before following with hastened steps to catch up, knowing in some part of her surely sleeping mind that this had to be a dream. Her brother, after all, would never walk again.

Out in the field, the dead continued to watch, but that was all they did, no moves made to approach the walls, let alone to try and climb them.

And so, the siblings walked for awhile in silence along the ramparts that surrounded Winterfell's Keep, Bran ever with the same unshakable calm and Arya not entirely sure what she was supposed to say to her brother. They were both so different now and so much had happened in the time since they'd last spoken. And if Sansa was to be believed, he knew exactly what had happened to her and everything she'd done in that time, something only proved by his stating of her reason for leaving.

"So, you can… see things," she ventured, not sure what else to say.

Bran continued to stare forward as they walked.

"I can."

"So then… I don't need to tell you anything that's happened," she surmised.

She couldn't tell if she felt relief for this knowledge or uncomfortably bare.

"Don't worry, Arya. Your secrets are safe with me, even that one about the Freys."

Her eyes snapped to him and she knew in that moment that it had to be true, his ability to know things he shouldn't.

His eyes lighted with the barest hint of amusement when he turned to her and said, "And they call _me_ the skinchanger."

It was a joke, but Arya thought she must've missed the punch line because she didn't understand what he found amusing. She understood it in reference to herself, for the faces she could wear that weren't her own, but why would people call _him_ such a thing?

But, there were more important things to discuss.

"Did you know I would leave?," Arya asked instead. "You didn't say much to stop me."

In fact, he'd said very little in the crypts aside from hinting that he knew her plans and telling her about the origins of the dagger he'd given her.

"Brandon Stark hoped you would stay," Bran said. "I knew you wouldn't."

It was unnerving, hearing her brother refer to himself in such a manner, as though he wasn't himself at all, like he'd been swallowed whole by this gift of omniscience granted to him and had become something else entirely. Arya swallowed and glanced away from him, but that only left her staring out over the field of the risen dead once more, so she turned her eyes down to her feet instead as she tread over the cobbles of a wall she hadn't walked in years.

"I was stupid," she said, justifying her own failure to herself as the folly of the angry child she thought she'd grown out of. "There were a dozen ways I could've killed her without being noticed, but I wanted her to see who it was that had done it. I wanted her to know why exactly she was being killed. Then her brother came in, not even suspicious, just a routine check and… he threw me out the window."

He had saved her life, in fact, and she still had no idea why.

"He likes to do that."

Arya was drawn up short at these strange words from her brother and he stopped with her. But, she realized as she studied him what exactly he must have meant and she felt herself slipping once again into that familiar pit of rage in her heart.

He hadn't fallen from the Broken Tower.

"Why?"

Why had Jaime Lannister even been there and what had he been doing that would make him throw a young boy out the window?

Bran didn't hesitate as he rejected the entire matter of his crippling with a simple, "It doesn't matter."

Possibly the most unnerving part of it was that he actually meant it. He felt nothing towards the man who had stolen his legs from him. He had risen above his anger whereas Arya felt at times like she was drowning in hers.

"I'm the Three-Eyed Raven now. I don't need to walk. It could even be argued that the man who pushed Brandon Stark from that window died when his hand was taken from him."

Arya didn't know if she believed that. Experience was a teacher that never stopped giving harsh lessons, but could a person really be change so much by their circumstances so as to render the sins of their past forgiven—or barring that, at least ignored? She didn't know if she believed in those kinds of second chances.

But, would the Jaime Lannister who'd pushed her brother from a window have let her escape after trying to kill a sister he supposedly loved more than anything else in the world?

Arya didn't have an answer for that either.

"You know what happened, then?" she asked as they continued on their walk along the ramparts and her brother glanced at her sidelong. "In King's Landing? Did you… _see_ it?"

"I did."

For the first time, Arya thought she saw a little of what might've been brotherly concern in Bran's eyes.

"How is your injury?"

She turned her face away, feeling the shame of failure rise in her bowels.

"Better," she dismissed, but no matter how proficient she'd become at lying, she felt that her brother wasn't fooled. Her back may have healed, but her arm, for whatever reason, had not. "The man who… The Mountain," she settled on, "what is he?"

"He is alive, yet," her brother claimed and Arya couldn't fathom how that could be possible given how it looked as though the man's eyes had been rotting in his skull, an image that still haunted her at night sometimes. "What you saw was the result of manticore venom and the machinations of a former Maester by the name of Qyburn."

The new Grand Maester's name was familiar to her, had been whispered in fearful undertones between the servants in the Red Keep in relation to experiments performed on any servants who "crossed" their new Queen—or sometimes without apparent cause. Arya had dismissed them as horror stories to keep the servants in line, but if what Bran was saying was true, then perhaps she should add another name to her list, if not to expunge such a man from the world then because he had saved the life of Ser Gregor Clegane.

She had, of course, learned plenty about poisons during her time in Braavos and manticore venom was one she was familiar with. It pleased her to know the Mountain would have suffered so much and she wondered if his pain continued even to that day in spite of this Qyburn's efforts to save his live. For the torture he'd put so many through, it would be fitting, and the look of him seemed to suggest it.

She was drawn from her musings when Bran paused and turned to look out over the sea of blue eyes belonging to the army of the walking dead that now surrounded Winterfell on all sides. Arya stopped alongside him, truly unsettled in her thoughts of the future for the first time since her return to Westeros as she leveled an uneasy stare out over the thousands of staring corpses.

"Be assured, the dead are much more dangerous, and they are coming for us all," Bran warned. "I see them everyday, getting closer. If the living can't come together in time, we may join them soon."

Arya realized for the first time how difficult it must've been for her brother to bear, seeing the things he did. Not just the dead, but the dying and the suffering of people all around the world. Perhaps that was why he'd locked himself away, she thought. Brandon Stark might surely break under the weight of it all, but the thing he'd become, this 'Three Eyed Raven' could remain objective and unyielding in his quest for answers regardless of the tragedies he saw. Or, perhaps there was no Three Eyed Raven and he'd been driven mad by the visions.

Arya bit down on and swallowed this thought because she couldn't kill the seer that had taken her brother, not without killing him too.

"Why tell me all of this now?" she asked instead. "Why not try to make me stay while I was still in Winterfell?"

"You believe in what you can see," Bran said as he turned to look at her again and there was no accusation in his expression.

In fact, there wasn't much of anything there.

He looked back out over the army of dead men, women, and children and added, "You needed to see this to believe the magnitude of it."

And Arya felt anger towards this thing that had taken her brother for twisting him into something she could hardly recognize.

"So, is that what this is?" she asked and she couldn't keep the accusation from her own tone because she had never expected that Bran of all people would resort to games of manipulation to get his way, even if it was for a cause such as this: to combat this army of the dead. "You're giving me some of your visions now to change my mind?"

"No."

Even in anger she knew the truth when she heard it and it eased some of Arya's ire.

"You're dreaming," her brother continued. "These images are your own. I'm merely walking them with you. But, I am afraid that must come to an end now," he concluded, and Arya felt a tug in her chest.

Because whatever he'd become, he was still her brother, somewhere deep down, and she didn't want him to go just yet.

"There are things I need to see," he said as he turned, "before it's too late."

She knew she wouldn't be able to keep him there, so Arya could only stand there and watch the Three Eyed Raven walk off wearing her brother's skin. He stepped into the dark of the guard tower at the end of the section of the wall they'd been standing on and then she was alone.

Again…

Arya knew what she had to do. She'd known it even before she'd left Winterfell and every moment since, but she'd never been very good at letting go of her anger. Her thirst for revenge would haunt her until Cersei Lannister drew her last breath. She was beginning to think that it may not even leave her then, that she would walk through life with a thirst she could never sate.

But, now the thought of returning to King's Landing brought with it an iron grip of ice around her throat as she stared out over a sea of unnatural blue eyes, and she knew what she had to do.


	11. Home Again

_A.N.: I'm sorry this took so long. This was a crazy week of car troubles and jury duty and I've got two tests next week. Hopefully, the next chapter won't take as long._

* * *

When she traveled alone, Brienne never slept for longer than an hour. While a light sleeper who would wake at the littlest sounds, it settled her mind to regularly take conscious stock of her surroundings. Such as it was on that cold winter night, stirring from her slumber an hour in to glance around.

She almost didn't notice.

The figure in patchwork furs, seated next to her and resting back against Brienne's horse, was so still that she failed at first to recognize it for the intruder it was, even seated mere inches from her head.

The moment she realized she was not alone, Brienne snatched Oathkeeper from beside her and made to draw the blade.

Then a calm voice which was at once familiar from from beneath a drawn hood said, "There's no need for that," and she drew up short, Oathkeeper pulled mere inches from its scabbard.

The voice belonged, after all, to the very girl she'd been trying to catch up to.

"Lady Arya," Brienne breathed out in wonderment because she'd feared she may have to go all the way to the Summer Sea before she found her.

"We ride at first light," the girl said, belaying all formalities of greeting.

And Brienne was relieved because it seemed that Arya Stark had decided on her own to return to Winterfell. Her help, it would appear, was unnecessary once again.

"Get some sleep," the wayward Lady muttered into the cold, the vapors of her breath billowing out from beneath her hood to dissipate into the frozen air.

Brienne hesitated, unable to even fathom doing such a thing now.

"I couldn't possibly, my Lady."

"I won't be getting any sleep anyway," the girl reasoned.

Brienne wondered if this was standard for her: an inability to sleep. And despite the justification, still the woman hesitated.

"Don't worry. I'll wake you if we're set upon by bandits."

It was said in such a way that implied it was half a jest and half earnest—she didn't expect it would be an issue, but she would act accordingly if it did. Of course this had nothing to do with Brienne's unwillingness to comply. If those villagers were to be believed, then Arya Stark may not even need her protection, but she was sworn to it, nonetheless. To sleep while the girl stood watch went against every noble instinct inside of her.

Arya seemed to understand this because she added, "If it would ease your conscience, I could make it an order."

It was then that Brienne knew she had to resign herself to the fact that there would be no arguing the matter. Before she complied, however, she pulled the blanket she'd been sleeping on and held it out to the girl. Arya turned at last to look at the offering, seemingly unsure of the gesture before she reached out to take the blanket with muttered thanks. She draped it over her legs, knees tucked to her chest already to fend off the cold, and tucked her arms beneath as well.

Then, against every instinct that compelled her to the contrary, Brienne settled back down into the warm confines of her heavy fur cloak, understanding in practice if not principle that at least one of them should rest. Sleep refused to come, however, so they each sat alert in silence. Brienne reckoned it was nearly a quarter of an hour before she spoke to fill the quiet.

"May I ask what changed your mind, my Lady?" was her question, her breath billowing out in front of her in a white cloud of vapor.

Only more silence followed and she thought that perhaps she had overstepped her bounds.

Then the girl said in a low voice two simple words: "My brother."

Brienne was relieved to have not offended the girl and the young Stark's response was perhaps not so surprising.

"Jon Snow?"

The woman had heard from Lady Sansa how her sister had formed a close bond with their half brother during her youth in Winterfell, so it would make sense that this relation would have compelled her to rethink her plans.

Arya's simple response of, "No," however, had the self-rejected knight quite perplexed.

She pondered a moment over what the girl could mean until she realized the obvious. Jon Snow was not their only brother. Brandon Stark was one of the most mysterious people Brienne had ever encountered: and possibly one of the most unnerving. She was hardly able to grasp the things he could do, but it seemed that conversing with distant persons was somewhere on that list. The circumstances of such a thing she couldn't even fathom.

"Oh, I see…"

Silence fell again as their mutual thoughts turned to the strange young seer of Winterfell.

Then Arya dismissed the matter a moment later with a quiet, "Get some sleep," and Brienne marveled at how she could say it without making it sound an order.

* * *

It seemed every day that there was more to do than the day which had preceded it. On this particular day, Gendry had fixed the tack and harness for a horse-drawn cart bringing food north to the Wall, re-smelted a cooking pot which had fractured from too many transitions from hot to the newly frigid weather of winter, and finished three training swords of truly shoddy craftsmanship-but they needed them done quickly more than they needed them done to his standards. Now a group of guards stood about him outside the smithy with mention of an extensive list of weaponry in need of repairs, things neither he nor the other smith, Rohar, had had time yet to tend to while forging weapons and armor for the new civilian forces. The guards were frustrated and understandably so. No one knew when this war would come and, even with two blacksmiths now, they couldn't keep up with everything that needed to get done.

Gendry sighed as he ran a hand through his hair, long enough now to fall into his line of sight. For the cold in the north, he'd cut it not once since departing from King's Landing. It was so cold, in fact, that he may never cut his hair again for the warmth it provided his scalp-no matter how much of a bother it was to clean or how often it impeded his vision.

Gods, it was cold in the north.

As the guardsmen continued to complain, the smith cast his eyes around the courtyard, just a cursory glance as the men began to repeat the same things they'd been telling him for ten minutes. He really didn't feel like repeating himself again, that they just couldn't spare the time at the moment for minor repairs on weapons already forged.

He drew up short as his eye passed by the gates of Winterfell and the relief that hit him in that instant, after the initial shock, nearly knocked him off his feet.

Because there stood Arya, wearing her own face and standing inside the walls of her home.

Her eyes were fixed in his direction and she looked as though she'd been heading for the keep when she'd seen him and paused. Behind her, he noted absently, was the same tall woman in armor who had been following the Lady of Winterfell the night they'd arrived, and two guardsmen at the gate were looking after them in wonderment.

The smile that took his lips was unnoticed by him as the complaining guards melted away from his senses. Those complaints followed him more insistently when he stepped away from them, but it was all just garbled noise as Arya approached him too. She seemed unusually unsure of herself despite that she'd grown up within these walls-although he supposed she'd spent the last third of her life away from them. And as they stopped a couple paces from one another, he noticed there was something else in her eyes beyond mere unease, a conflict of some sort as though she was still torn by her decision.

But, she was there, openly showing herself to the people of Winterfell.

"You came back."

And it seemed she planned to stay this time.

Arya glanced down then back up to return his gaze, rubbing her fingers together in a fidgety fashion which implied it wasn't to combat the cold. Seemingly unsure of anything else to say, because her presence in Winterfell was already an obvious confirmation of her decision to return, she reiterated what he'd said with a tone loaded with some sort of emotion he wasn't sure about, one which amplified the conflict in her eyes.

"I came back."

It was then that Gendry became aware of the eyes looking on them, the guards and a few civilians and that tall woman and he knew it wasn't the time or place for any sort of private conversation. Arya seemed to understand this, her eyes flitting to the their surroundings in the span of a blink before she looked at him again.

"Do you know where my sister is?"

"In the keep with the other Lords, I reckon," Gendry said. "She's already done her rounds this afternoon."

Arya still had that loaded look in her eyes which implied she wanted to say something else, but she ultimately decided against it. She nodded her thanks before turning towards the keep and Gendry's hand grew a mind of its own, reaching out to touch her wrist to stop her. It certainly wasn't something he'd intended to do, but she'd been turning away and he'd just reacted. She looked at him, a little alarmed for the unfamiliar gesture, and he dropped his hand.

All he could fumble out after the mishap was a simple, "I'm glad you're here," which made him cringe internally.

Arya stared at him a moment, her expression unreadable, bet she eventually gave a small, unsure smile. Then she dipped her head and walked off toward the keep. He watched her go but noted as the large woman passed that she was giving him an odd sort of look, curious and calculating.

Clearing his throat, Gendry turned back to the agitated guards still waiting outside the smithy.

* * *

He was waiting in the main hall just inside the doors to the keep and he didn't seem all that surprised to see her. In fact, he looked as though he'd been expecting her, and Arya wondered if he'd seen her traveling back to Winterfell.

"Did you know?" she asked. "That I would come back?"

Bran's expression gave nothing away, no relief upon seeing her again in person or satisfaction that he'd succeeded in changing her mind.

"It's not always clear," he said in that voice that wasn't his, devoid of all of the fire he'd once had. "Brandon Stark hoped you would."

Again, Arya was unnerved as he referred to himself in this way, although it pleased her to know that, somewhere in there, her brother had wanted to see her again. All the same, she was relieved to have an excuse to leave his company. She gave him a nod and started again for the doors of the Great Hall.

But, as she passed him, she drew up short, words burning in her chest. She clenched her fists and squared her jaw and sighed decisively through her nose before looking back down at him.

"I know you're still in there, Bran. When this war is over," she gave her solemn vow, " I'm going to get you back."

The Three Eyed Raven only blinked up at her. But, when she looked back as she walked away, Arya saw him swallow hard, his jaw tense, and she knew her brother had heard her.

* * *

Sansa looked every bit the Lady of Winterfell she was supposed to be in Jon's absence. Seated in the place of honor at the high table, she addressed the Lords of their Bannermen with a cool sort of authority she hadn't possessed when Arya had last known her in King's Landing.

The conversation stopped as the returning Stark, and Brienne still at her back, approached and all faces turned in their direction. Arya was surprised to find a young girl in their numbers, not much older she would guess than she herself had been when Joffrey had taken her father's head. One of the Lords questioned her presence there and the youngest Stark daughter's attention was drawn back to her sister at the movement of her standing from her chair.

There were many things in Sansa's eyes, subtle as they may be, and Arya felt that tug in her chest again, the one she'd felt when she'd first seen her sister again, the one that reminded her that she wasn't the only Stark still living after the tragedies which had befallen their family.

"Arya," Sansa breathed out, sounding so relieved that Arya's heart tugged again almost painfully.

She was rooted in place as her sister rounded the table, only turning a moment before she was drawn into another tight hug.

"Thank the Gods," Sansa breathed.

She pulled back then, her hands on Arya's arms a moment as she studied her, as though fearing something terrible may have happened over the two weeks she'd spent traveling on an empty road. Finding nothing amiss, she was relieved and turned her attention beside them, to the tall woman still standing vigil despite the fact that they'd reached their destination.

"Thank you, Lady Brienne, for escorting Arya here."

"I take none of the credit, my Lady," the woman was quick to deny and Arya saw frustration in her sister's eyes. "She was already on her way here when I met up with her."

"And I thank you all the same," Sansa reiterated.

Ultimately, Lady Brienne of Tarth accepted the gratitude and was excused to eat and rest after the journey. Sansa then briefly explained the situation and excused both herself and Arya from the company of the other Lords, looping their arms together to lead Arya from the Great Hall.

Mostly, Arya just went along with it all, finding all at once that she'd quite forgotten how to interact in normal situations when there was no scheme to further or information to gather. She didn't need to pretend to be anyone other than herself. Ever since she'd gone to Gendry's smithy in King's Landing, she'd been Arya again, regained some sense of herself after years of pretending to be someone else. But, here in Winterfell, she was Arya Stark.

That was someone she hadn't been in a very long time.

Bran wasn't in the hall when they stepped out and Arya hated that she was relieved by it. Sansa spoke as she lead her through the halls, first about why the Lords were convened-apparently, some of them required semi-constant reminders that leaving this war alone would only end with the dead on their doorstep, and Sansa grew more weary of their complaints by the day. In the end, while she knew none of them and cared not to change that, the Lords'-and Lady's-presence in Winterfell did affect Arya's immediate situation.

Simply stated, there was nowhere to put her.

"All the extra rooms are in use at the moment. Lots of visiting Lords to accommodate." Sansa was explaining as they moved down familiar hallways, and Arya was only able to partially pay attention, suddenly lost in a feeling of nostalgia and a few distant memories that chose to surface, memories of running through these halls in her younger years. "Jon won't return for some time, though, and I doubt he would mind if you used his chambers for now. I'll start figuring something out for your permanent sleeping arrangements tomorrow."

When they finally reached their destination, Sansa was reluctant to admit that she couldn't stay, but she hugged Arya one more time before she left to return to the Lords of the North, leaving her alone in a room which was both familiar and unrecognized.

Sansa had said it was Jon's room now. It used to be Robb's, back before… everything. Arya remembered hiding out there sometimes when their mother or Septa Mordane use to get after her about learning 'proper' skills or about something she'd done to upset Sansa. Most of the time, she'd gone to Jon's room, but they had begun to expect that, so she'd taken to hiding here sometimes to throw them off her trail.

Robb had never minded, so long as she didn't interrupt his studies too much, studies which he had actually partaken in voluntarily despite how his fellow siblings detested the work. He had even taken the time to explain some things to his little sister, curious as she was about things she 'ought not to be'.

And the ache in her heart as these memories were conjured from some dark, unused corner of her mind, was so strong that it stole Arya's breath away, forcing her to brace her weight on the wall to keep herself standing as she clutched at her heart, breathing deep to keep the painful swell of emotions at bay.

Robb was gone. She would never see him again or hear his laugh. She couldn't even remember the last words they had shared… And Jon… Jon was far away, had been since just after she'd left for King's Landing with their father and Sansa.

A part of her feared she would lose a second brother before she got the chance to see him again.

* * *

Sansa finished her business with the Lords and Lady as quickly as she could manage, although the affairs had taken them into suppertime. The Lady of Winterfell went to the kitchens and ordered that a plate of bread and cheese be brought to her and she also found some honeyed wine which she'd snatched up.

On her way back to Jon's room, she half expected her sister to be either asleep after her weeks on the road or gone when she arrived, off exploring somewhere. But, Arya was seated on the edge of the bed when she stepped into the room, her back ramrod straight and her hands on her knees, looking for all intents and purposes as though she had no idea what to do with herself. When, Sansa wondered, was the last time her sister had been able to just sit and be still without merely waiting to head out on the next leg of some journey?

Her sister turned upon her entrance and for a moment she had that same look in her eye that she'd had when Sansa had asked her what she would do when her quest was finished; it would seem their two weeks of separation had not granted her any more answers.

Sansa held up the wine.

"Care for a drink?"

The casual nature of the offer seemed to help ease some of her tension and Arya even smiled and laughed a small puff of a laugh.

And so, the two sisters sat side by side on the bed to eat from the plate of bread and cheese while they took turns sipping from the bottle of wine. The informality of it seemed to amuse Arya. Sansa had to admit that it wasn't something she ever would have done back when the two sisters had been acquainted, but Arya was home again. That was reason enough to forego the formalities of dining, if only to try to reconnect with her.

Her sister didn't seem ready to talk, however, so Sansa did the talking. She told Arya how she had never actually married Joffrey, how she'd been made to marry his uncle, Tyrion instead. How, despite the fact that he was a Lannister, Tyrion had been kind to her, respecting her privacy and her virginity. How Joffrey had been poisoned at his wedding to Margaery Tyrell and how Petyr Baelish had used the chaos to smuggle her out of King's Landing. How Lord Baelish was the one to kill their aunt. How he had claimed he would take Sansa somewhere else safe, only to give her to the Boltons. To Ramsay.

That part of the story was one the eldest Stark daughter struggled to voice and her sister seemed deeply troubled by the news, setting down the last piece of bread she'd been eating.

"Is there … any lasting damage?" she asked.

Sansa swallowed and shifted, pushing down the conjured memories of the darkest time in her life.

"He needed me to give him heirs," she reasoned aloud, unable to look at her sister. "There are some scars, but… no. Nothing truly permanent."

There was a beat of silence that followed before her sister ultimately responded with a quietly spoken, "...That's good."

Sansa nodded in an agreement which didn't even need to be expressed because, however terrible that situation had been, she would still be able, if she were so inclined, to have children at some point later in her life. For the time being, however, she turned her mind on other, less painful matters.

"Theon Greyjoy helped me escape," she continued her story, "and we made our way North. Lady Brienne saved us from some Bolton men and brought me the rest of the way to the Wall. To Jon."

There were many things in her sister's eyes at the mention of their half brother, and Sansa regretted bringing it up because she knew how much Arya missed him. It had been more than six years since she and Jon had seen one another, a fact which clearly weighed heavily on Arya.

"He'll be back. It should only be a matter of weeks now. He'll be _so_ happy to see you," Sansa tried to comfort her and her sister looked away, down at her fidgeting hands.

There were scars there which Sansa knew had not been there before their separation and she wondered again what multitude of things had happened to her sister over the years. She didn't ask, knowing Arya was probably too overwhelmed in that moment to talk about any of it, being officially back in their home for the first time in years.

"Thank you," Arya ultimately said, dropping the topic of Jon. "For the food and… for telling me all those things."

"It was good to get them out." Sansa said, and then she reasoned, "I imagine you're tired." Arya gave a nod and Sansa lingered, suddenly unsure. "Will I see you in the morning?"

Arya gave another nod and it was a relief because it was genuine—she wouldn't be disappearing again, at least not before morning. With her mind eased and nothing else to discuss, the eldest Stark daughter stood with the plate of crumbs and the half-drained bottle of wine and moved to the door. There, she paused and looked back.

"I'm glad you're home, Arya."

Her sister stared a moment in silence before offering one more nod and a small smile.

"Me too."

Returning her smile, Sansa bid her sister goodnight and retreated from the room, closing the door behind her. As she made her way down to the kitchens, however, The Lady of Winterfell had one final idea.

* * *

She woke late that night from a pleasantly sound sleep and was instantly assaulted by a myriad of emotions because the surroundings were familiar, even if the room itself wasn't so well known. The smell of wood and furs and the subtler scent of pine from the Wolfswood west of Winterfell hit her in full force, a mixture which conjured a powerful sense of nostalgia and _home_ which had her near to tears.

There was a large weight settled next to her on the bed, a body pressing into her side and Arya reached out to investigate, already suspecting before her hand landed on long, coarse fur who her visitor was. It was Jon's room, after all. He probably slept there regularly.

Ghost didn't stir as she began to stroke his fur, but he gave a marginally contented sigh and continued to breathe deeply, his nose close to her head as he lay beside her.

Arya wasn't sure if it was her surroundings or the direwolf's presence, conjuring thoughts of Nymeria whom she would likely never see again, which caused it, but her emotions finally overtook her, moisture slipping from between her closed eyelids to roll down into her hair. She tried to get a handle on them at first but ultimately decided it was a hopeless—and unnecessary—cause. The only one present to witness her loss of composure was Ghost, and so, resigned to and giving in to her tears, Arya rolled onto her side to face her brother's direwolf.

"You won't tell anyone, will you?" she asked him softly, knowing full well that he had no way of doing so.

Ghost shifted his head to look at her and he gave the tip of her nose a sniff before he nudged it with his own. Arya gave a small, watery laugh.

"Thanks, Ghost," she muttered softly. "I knew I could trust you."

She fell asleep like that, with the comforting presence of Ghost beside her, wishing in the back of her mind that her brother was in Winterfell too.

* * *

 _Additions to the timeline:_

 _Arya leaves Winterfell but ultimately returns_

 _Two weeks_


	12. Stalemate

Sansa considered herself an early riser. She hadn't always been that way and it stemmed more from insomnia than it did a new desire to be up with the sun. Yet, every morning since her sister's return a week ago, when the acting Lady of Winterfell went down to the Great Hall to break her nightly fast, Arya was already seated. Usually, she was sitting in what became her usual place at the high table. A few times, her food was already finished, yet she remained, seemingly to wait for Sansa to arrive. It was a warming notion. One morning, Arya had been sitting at one of the lower tables across from the smith, Gendry—with whom Sansa had recently shared an enlightening conversation—although they hadn't appeared to be saying much, a sort of awkward tension between them. Sansa had wanted to ask about it, but she hadn't, knowing Arya would probably dodge the question anyway. She never said much, usually just asked about Sansa's plans for the day. Whenever Sansa tried to ask about anything involving her past, her sister would get up and leave, claiming something she had to do, and Sansa began to wonder if things would always be this way, with her fishing for information and Arya running away.

Which was why it was so surprising when, staring into her soup, Arya offered up on her own, "A man of the Watch smuggled me out of King's Landing. …The day father died."

It was the first thing her sister had said about her missing years which didn't raise more questions than it answered. The confessions didn't even stop there. She didn't go into much detail and Sansa found it was more a tale of what had happened to those around Arya rather than what had happened to her. But, she opened up a little all the same.

She told Sansa about how the man from the Wall was killed by some Gold Cloaks and how she and the recruits he'd been escorting had been taken to Harrenhal. A Braavosi had gotten her and a couple others out and offered to train her if she ever found herself to Braavos—Arya seemed particularly mum on details with this part of her story. While she and her friends had been trying to make it to Robb and the Northern army, the Hound had captured Arya and intended to sell her back to her mother and then to her aunt Lysa, only to arrive too late both times.

That was the worst part of the story, to learn that Arya had been there when the Freys had butchered Robb and their mother. Of all the places Sansa had envisioned her sister, she'd never even dared to fear that. Suddenly, her sister's desire to take upon a mantle of vengeance herself made more sense than it had when Sansa had believed her only out to avenge their father. By the way she spoke, there were a number of people Arya wanted to eradicate from the world, only some of whom were even still alive. She wondered then how many had met their fate at her sister's hands and tried not to be made uneasy. Her sister, after all, wasn't a little girl anymore.

Sansa suspected she hadn't been since their father had been murdered.

Arya continued her story, brief though it was in her retelling of things. Brienne had apparently found them at some point and had fatally wounded the Hound in an attempt to take Arya into her custody, but Arya had fled, unable to trust her. She'd made her way to Braavos and had taken the Braavosi from Harrenhal up on his offer, but she was once again particularly vague on details with this part of her story in relation to anything involving her time there. Although she was undeniably curious, Sansa didn't pry into the matter. She'd already learned more than she'd expected to. Given time, perhaps she would learn more.

"But, they wanted me to become something I wasn't," Arya concluded. "In the end, I couldn't, so here I am."

Her voice was vacant, but there was a weight in her eyes which Sansa couldn't decipher—she no longer knew how to read her sister as she once had. They were no longer the same people. In most ways, they may as well be strangers. But, perhaps the unfamiliar and damaged people they'd become had more in common than the sisters they'd been born as.

"That was where you learned to… become someone else?" Sansa ventured, her first spoken words since her sister had begun her tale.

"Yes," was Arya's simple reply, going into no detail about how exactly she was able to do such a thing.

"And where you learned how to fight?" Sansa pressed a little further.

"Syrio Forel taught me how to fight," Arya corrected her quickly and the name spurred a faint recollection which brought Sansa back to a time before all of the tragedy in their lives.

"Your old dancing master?" she asked.

Arya didn't answer, but she didn't have to. Somehow, Sansa wasn't surprised to learn their father had agreed to let Arya learn swordsmanship. He'd never really been able to deny his children much of anything, particularly when it was something they had wanted as much as Arya had desired to learn the art of melee combat.

"The faceless men only refined those skills," Arya added, and Sansa thought curiously that she might have been speaking just a little louder than before, something purposeful one might mistake for hubris. "They taught me how to disappear and how to kill. I could eliminate anyone in this room if I wanted to and I could make it look like an accident. Or suicide. No one would ever know."

While these rather grim things were surely true, it seemed an odd clarification to state so plainly when Arya had been trying carefully before to avoid specific mention of any killing she'd done—probably for Sansa's benefit. Her sister had once been prone to voicing her confidence boldly, but she seemed a good deal quieter now, no longer demanding through voice for people to take her seriously when her size and demeanor had failed to do so for her. Her manner was entirely different as she now entered womanhood, commanding a sort of respect and even a wariness of danger through her presence alone. So, when she turned back onto her old habits of boasting, Sansa immediately thought there had to be a point to it.

Arya's reasons became clear when the Lady of Winterfell turned to find Lord Baelish sitting half a table away, a little too focused on his bowl of soup as he ate alone. Since her sister's return, he had kept carefully to the background for the most part, yet, still, he remained in Winterfell when matters in the Vale surely required his attention.

It wasn't difficult to discern what her sister was doing, beyond the obvious threat, that is. After all, Arya was an admitted killer with a cold and indifferent manner while Sansa possessed absolutely no skills in martial matters. She wanted Sansa to react as she once might have, to feign an uneasy reaction to her statement. She aimed to force Lord Baelish's hand. She was no longer, it seemed, a reactionary force but rather one to instigate and manipulate the situation, not towards an end but rather to hasten the events to their conclusion.

Her lack of patience, it seemed, had not disappeared. It had only taken on a new form.

When Arya stood and bid her farewell, Sansa played her part, slipping on a mask of subtle unease—too overt, and the plan would be foiled at its inception because he knew she kept things close to the vest now. And as she too stood to attend to her duties that day, Sansa briefly caught Peytr's scheming eye and she knew he'd taken the bait.

Now all that remained was to reel him in slowly.

* * *

There was something fitting in the image of it, Gendry thought: a large snow-colored wolf trailing behind one of the remaining Starks as she moved through the courtyard. There was a cold sort of serenity to it, both one of the last of their kind and both dangerous in their own right. And as they neared him, Gendry had to force himself to relax because the wolf was watching him, its red eyes never straying from him as it moved closer.

Arya seemed a little amused by this, probably thinking of his tense meeting with her former direwolf companion out in the Barrowlands. In his defense, not many could walk among the giant wolves as if they belonged. The Starks, as he'd heard in many stories, may as well have been born to them.

"This is Ghost. He's Jon's direwolf,"Arya introduced the beast as she finally stopped a few paces from the smith.

"I've heard," Gendry replied. "Though no stories could've prepared me to see one of these myself," he mused as the large white direwolf took up station beside the youngest Stark daughter, tall enough that his back rose above her waist.

Her hand landed on Ghost's scruff, disappearing into the depths of his long white fur, and despite everything he'd heard and the apparent nonviolent nature of both this wolf and the one they'd met before, Gendry thought it a wonder when the wolf didn't bite at her. He wasn't sure he would ever quite get used to them or get used to seeing anyone interact peacefully with them.

But with the introductions finished, the awkward silence took hold of them once again as it had every time they'd encountered one another since Arya's second return to her home. He wasn't even sure about its source, but his unease was mostly just a reaction to her own. It was as though she still wanted to say something but that even she might not be sure what that something was. Whatever it was, it hung head in the air between them anytime they were close and Gendry wished they could just get passed it.

In the end, he found himself asking, "How's your hand?" partly for concern but mostly to fill the void of conversation with _something_.

On instinct, Arya rubbed her fingers together and looked down at them, flexing them a couple times as if to test out their movement before giving her answer.

"A little better," she offered in stilted reply. When the silence dragged on in a moment of awkward tension, Gendry was surprised when it seemed to spur her to say more because she'd never seemed to mind the silence before. "I've still had to get used to using my right hand, but I'm getting better at holding Bran's dagger with my left. It's lighter and easier to maneuver than Needle."

He'd seen the aforementioned dagger on her hip, of course, but Gendry hadn't known she'd gotten it from her brother. From the glimpses he'd caught, it looked to be a fine and expensive blade fitting for a Lady warrior.

Arya seemed to note his curiosity because she pulled the dagger from her belt and held it out to him. In an instant, he knew it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen in all his years smithing. It almost felt a crime to touch it, but he relished the opportunity nonetheless. The handle was smooth dragonglass, and a large red jewel was faceted into either side of it's handguard, gold lining the gems and down the length of the handle in solid drips. Yet it was the blade which drew his eye because that intricate pattern, like ripples in water, could only mean one thing.

"This is Valyrian steel," he breathed in awe.

He'd never seen the material himself before, but it was unmistakable. The smith in him wanted to fawn over it, perhaps swing it around a few times like a boy messing around with a new toy sword, but he managed to contain himself. He ran his fingers over the cool metal, marveling at how smooth it was despite the ripples in the steel. He was careful not to touch the cutting edge, aware of how sharp Valyrian steel was fabled to be, and he couldn't believe how light the dagger was.

"It's incredible!"

"It handles really well," Arya commented.

Reluctantly, he held the dagger back out to her and Arya took it by the blade with her handicapped hand. With a flick of her wrist, she flipped it nimbly in the air then caught it by the handle and tucked it into its sheath all in one fluid motion.

She'd said she was still getting used to it, but she seemed proficient already to Gendry's eye.

Folding his arms against the chill of the air, he posed, "At the risk of more uncomfortable silence, I just thought I'd ask." When he got a somewhat hesitant nod, he continued. "It looks like there's something you want to say. When you look at me, it's…"

Normally, he wouldn't be so bold as to broach something like this, much less to ask a Lady of a prominent house what she wouldn't say, but this was Arya and he wanted to think they'd been through enough that he didn't have to worry about station.

"I was just… wondering what it was."

Arya shifted just slightly on her feet and glanced down at them before meeting his eye again.

"I wanted to apologize," she said at length. She was quick to add, "Not for leaving," just in case he got the wrong idea, and he nearly frowned, "but because I didn't tell you beforehand that I was going to. I just… I didn't want you to talk me out of it."

But, this took Gendry unawares because it seemed as though there was some sort of confession muddled in there with that last statement, which she'd said just a little quieter.

"Would I have been able to?" he ventured cautiously.

Arya paused a moment, seemingly unsure about something he'd never even thought to consider.

"Perhaps," she eventually allowed, and Gendry wasn't quite sure what to say to that, to have such potential sway over someone as stubborn as her.

She didn't give him much time to ponder over it because then Arya asked, "What happened?"

It sounded a loaded question, as though it was one she'd been wanting to ask him for some time, although the words themselves implied nothing significant without context. But, the look in her eyes as Arya turned to him gave Gendry most of what he needed about context.

"I thought she was going to kill you."

And with that, he knew she wanted to know what had happened after their separation. It wasn't a time in his life he preferred to dwell on, but if she wanted to know, he wouldn't deny her the information.

"I think she was going to," he admitted and there was that darkness in Arya's eyes again when he did that made him wonder what fate may befall the Red Witch one day. "She brought me to some island castle east of King's Landing. Stannis Baratheon was there with his army. I guess I was there to help him win his war."

While the anger was still there, Arya was confused now as well.

"How?"

It was a fair question. He was one man with no official training in combat, just his instincts and a bit of natural strength from his father and his profession. He couldn't breathe fire or lead armies into battle. How was he supposed to have taken the Red Keep for Stanis?

"It was dark magic of some kind," the smith confessed. "The Red Woman, she…" Gendry shifted his feet as he thought back on how he'd been fool enough to fall for the woman's seductions and decided it was best to leave that part out, if only to preserve a little of his dignity. "She used leeches to take some of my blood and she gave them to Stannis," the smith said in redacted form.

He struggled to say what he needed to next. But, this wasn't information he couldn't keep to himself, no matter how much he wanted to. It didn't belong to him. Not really. Arya should have it and take from it what she would. That knowledge didn't make it any easier for him to hold her eye as he spoke.

"He threw the leeches on the fire and he said a name for each of them, the people standing between him and that damn iron chair."

Arya seemed to know that the news he was building to was tied to her because her gaze was intense. If it were possible, he might think she could read the information from his mind.

"One of them was your brother's..." Gendry finally managed to say the words and he felt his insides clench because he was culpable for the tragedy no matter his unwilling circumstances at the time. "I heard he died… not long after that."

* * *

She could see it in his eyes. Guilt. Against all reasoning, it seemed that Gendry blamed himself, at least on some level, for the tragedies of that night and for the role he believed himself to have played in it. But, it was utterly ridiculous and it wasn't something Arya would stand for because Gendry hadn't shot his brother full of arrows or slit his mother's throat.

"My mother's and Robb's deaths weren't your fault," she said, her tone firm. "Roose Bolton planned to betray them long before Stannis Baratheon burned any magic slugs."

He needed to understand this. He needed to understand that the actions of those men were not driven by dark magic but by hubris and a want for more than they already had.

"No God of Light murdered them," Arya stressed further and Gendry's gaze was heavy with contemplation as he took the words in. "Men did. Greedy men who have since paid for their sins."

She never said it, but Gendry seemed to understand it anyway, that truth which she hadn't actually admitted to outright. But, the timing alone was sort of a giveaway. Afterall, he'd known of her return to Westeros before anyone else. It wasn't that much of a leap to assume she'd been back for just a little bit longer than he'd been aware.

"Shame what happened to the Freys, isn't it?" he asked, both his tone and eyes loaded with the unspoken knowledge of what they both now knew. "I heard the whole lot of them were murdered at some feast."

"They deserved it."

It sounded even to her own ears like she was defending her actions, but it looked as though Gendry was hardly going to crucify her for them. On the contrary, he seemed pleased, almost proud.

"Aye, that they did."

The sudden tension of potentially disappointing someone, dare she say, close to her faded and Arya was relieved.

Interacting with Sansa was… difficult, even when an uninvited guest wasn't eavesdropping on their conversations. Not because there was any residual tension there but because there were so many expectations. Even Arya had expected many things from her sister on her way home, most of which Sansa had failed to fulfill in the best possible ways. They had known each other antagonistically before their lives had been torn apart and with that came memories and instincts of thought from days long past.

But, Gendry had only known her after everything had fallen apart. In the end, she realized she probably shouldn't have been surprised by how well he'd handled the news that she'd single handedly eradicated an entire noble house from existence in the name of her mother and brother. Gendry had been with her when she'd started her journey to becoming this person she was today, a startling realization. It wasn't his presence in her life or his understanding of her history that was alarming.

It was rather that that had been the first time she'd thought of herself as a person in a long time, not merely an instrument forged in fire to cut out some justice for her family. Not a tool or a weapon, cold and devoid of anything but purpose. A person. A person who was able to feel guilt and grief and all of the things she'd spent so long shelling herself of; everything but anger, that is.

She wasn't quite sure how to handle this realization and, suddenly afraid for a reason she couldn't quite define, Arya gave Gendry some excuse about helping Sansa with something and took her leave.

* * *

Brienne was surprised when Arya Stark challenged her to spar. Next to most, the girl was small. Next to the Lady of Tarth, she was tiny, as tiny as the sword she insisted upon using, in fact. But, Brienne couldn't refuse, not when the girl reminded her that she had sworn to Catelyn Stark that she would serve both of her daughters. So, she opted to hold back, not to plow through her defenses like she generally did with Podrick.

She soon realized that, what Arya lacked in size, she more than made up for in speed and agility. Where Brienne was weighty movements and brutal swings, Arya was finesse and parries just forceful enough to divert Oathkeeper, not a single movement or an ounce of energy wasted. It was stunning to find such skill in one so young. There was something unusual about her grip as she held the thin blade, but her hold on it was firm despite this.

Arya ducked and swayed and danced her way around most of the her attacks. Her small sword, after all, wasn't designed to face the weight of a longsword in a direct parry time and again, however well-forged the steel was.

Over the course of all of this, Brienne actually managed to forget for a moment who she was fighting. It'd been a long time since she had been challenged to a good spar that it was almost liberating not to hold back for a change. Of course, she was reminded rather instantaneously when she actually managed to knock the girl flat on her back.

Brienne froze, appalled at her own actions, and those watching in the courtyard fell silent, wondering if there would be punishment for the fool foolish enough to injure a Stark.

But, Arya just got back up with that same finesse that had carried her through the fight thus far, on her back one moment then on her feet the next. This was not the spoiled child of a prominent house, accustomed to getting her way then doling out harsh reprimand and punishment when she didn't get whatever it was she happened to want in that moment. No, this was a warrior, tempered through hardship and willing to work hard for a victory: to earn it outright by her own hands.

For whatever reason, Arya actually switched hands, trading her sword from her dominant left over to her non-dominant right before dashing in to continue the fight, and Brienne wondered if something had gone wrong or if it was a tactic. The girl handled the blade nearly as well, but Brienne still wondered at the switch. She wondered, that is, until the spar ended with Oathkeeper poised at the girl's collarbone and a knife held cross-handed in Arya's now free left hand, set and ready to sever Brienne's carotid artery.

A stalemate.

Of all the outcomes she'd envisioned upon accepting the girl's challenge, this had not been one of them. Arya seemed pleased by it and Brienne had to admit that she found some satisfaction in it as well, to have finally found someone who could hold their own against her. She feared at times that, only facing Pod time and again, she would become complacent in battle; he was a good man, but combat was not something he excelled at.

Brienne was alarmed when Arya grimaced as she lowered her arm and nearly dropped the knife in her hand.

"Are you alright, my Lady?" she asked, her own hand held in the air between them. She'd been about to steady the girl, but she stopped when Arya kept her own footing.

The girl offered a nod and put her weapons away-one at a time so as to avoid using her clearly injured dominant arm-and muttered a dismissive and slightly frustrated, "Fine."

Brienne gave her own nod, knowing she had no place to press the issue. But, she would keep an eye out. She would try to keep the girl's privacy, but she would report the matter to Lady Sansa if it became necessary.

With their spar at an end, Brienne raised her own sword to sheath it but paused when she noticed Arya's eye follow the movement with a pointed fixation.

"My Lady?" she asked in question.

Arya glanced up at her, seemingly caught off guard that her curiosity had been noticed, or perhaps that she'd been staring at all. She shifted her feet and flexed the fingers of her injured arm.

"If you're not a Lannister, then why did the Kingslayer give you that sword?" she eventually asked, eying the blade in Brienne's hand once more with a mixture of curiosity and disdain.

If she were tied to the Lannisters in the same way the Starks were, Brienne might detest the lion on Oathkeeper's pommel as well.

"It was a gift, my Lady," she answered simply.

"Arya," the girl said, the word spoken quickly as if in correction, and Brienne felt her eyebrows dip with her confusion.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Not 'my Lady', just 'Arya'," the young Stark explained. "I've never been much of a Lady. If it makes you more comfortable, you can use the ridiculous title in front of the northern Lords, but I'd prefer it just be 'Arya' whenever possible."

Brienne was stunned at first because she had never expected to find another noble Lady who shared her sentiment in this regard. After a moment, however, she felt herself grin a bit for this shared resentment of theirs over such titles.

"I was never much of a Lady myself," she admitted and Arya actually gave a little laugh, although it wasn't one of derision as was usually the case in regards to Brienne's lack of femininity.

"No, I suppose you wouldn't have been, being a knight and all."

"I'm not a knight," Brienne was quick to correct her because, whatever the manner of her service to the Stark daughters, a knighthood was never something she'd managed to attain.

However, when Arya asked so simply, "Are you entirely sure about that?" the Lady of Tarth actually found herself reconsidering something she'd never before thought to question. "You scoured Westeros for my sister and me," the girl continued, "and you've now sworn an oath of fealty to protect her with your life. That sounds like a knight to me. If not in title than in deed. And, really, actions are more important that titles. In all of the ways that matter, are you not a knight?"

Brienne was silent following this brief but ultimately accurate depiction of her station and situation, unsure how exactly to respond with such information presented to her so simply. It was true. In her heart, she felt herself a knight, and she strived everyday to uphold the principles of knighthood despite the fact that she'd never been granted the honor of its title. But, it had never been herself that she'd needed to convince, not really. In the eyes of the world, she was still just a large woman with a sword and some armor.

Arya seemed to understand the gravity of the debate going on inside of her and opted not to seek an answer on the matter just then, something Brienne was silently thankful for.

"If it's not a Lannister blade, why does it have their lion on it?" she asked instead, turning the conversation back to its inception.

Relieved to be back onto a much more clinical topic of conversation, Brienne glanced down at the blade in question.

"I didn't lie to you back then, when I found you in the Eyrie," she said, wanting Arya to understand this first, to know that the honesty of her own words was important to her, "I was in service to your mother. She ordered me to return Jaime Lannister to King's Landing and in turn he swore he would have you and your sister returned to her. By the time we got there… your mother and your brother had already been murdered."

A darkness creeped into Arya's eyes at the mention of this tragedy, but she didn't speak on it. There was something else in her eyes at the mention of Jaime, some weight of memory, but Brienne couldn't tell what it was exactly.

"When Sansa fled the Red Keep," she continued, "Jaime tasked me with finding her and bringing her somewhere where Cersei Lannister could not reach her. He gave me this sword as a gift of good faith."

Shifting her grip and considering the girl's injured arm, Brienne held the blade out with the hilt towards Arya's uninjured right hand, an offer to take the blade which the girl didn't seem about to take anytime soon.

Then Brienne said, "It is one of two swords that were reforged from your father's."

Arya was visibly surprised by this information and, for a moment, Brienne thought she saw a vulnerability there in the depths of her gray eyes at the mention of her departed father. She held Brienne's gaze for a moment, searching for truth in her expression. And when she found it and looked back down to the sword, it was with a new understanding of the offer. Slowly, she reached out and wrapped her slender fingers around the grip. Her entire demeanor was heavy, a tenseness settled onto her frame as she ran her fingers over the shining Valyrian steel that had once been her father's broadsword, Ice. When she finished her observation and held the longsword out to return it, Brienne made no comment of the glistening of her eyes as she took and sheathed the blade.

"You said two swords?" the girl asked, her voice just a little thicker than it had been before.

Brienne gave a curt nod.

"The other, I believe, was given to Joffrey shortly before he died. Ser Jaime carries it now." She'd seen it on his hip at the Siege of Riverrun.

Arya showed little to no expression in response to this news, but there was a weight in her eyes again at the mention of the Captain of the Kingsguard, which Brienne was curious about. It wasn't her place to ask, however, and the girl didn't seem about to share the information. So, the matter was dropped as Arya bid her farewell and turned to leave.

She was still working the fingers of her left hand as she walked away, and Brienne thought to mention it to Lady Sansa. Hopefully, the injury wasn't severe.

* * *

They weren't making any headway. Daenerys Stormborn, with all of her titles and her dragons, wouldn't offer her support in the only war that mattered unless Jon offered his fealty to a woman he didn't know, and that was something he would never do. The North had been at the mercy of too many ruthless and careless rulers for him to just hand them over to someone who could turn out to be no different. They were running out of time, yet they were locked in this ridiculous, godsforsaken stalemate. If she knew the things he'd seen, the enemies he'd faced north of the Wall, he knew—or he had to believe—that this would-be queen wouldn't just sit aside on some throne while the dead marched on the North, regardless of any oaths of fealty that had or hadn't been sworn.

If it weren't for the dragonglass, Jon wouldn't even be there.

The chosen King in the North was in the room offered to him, pondering—or brooding, as most seemed fit to call it—when a knock came at his door. To be honest, he was surprised he was even allowed messages from home, but when Ser Davos greeted him with a letter from Sansa, Jon accepted it with gratitude.

And as he read the words, he felt his knees weaken as his eyes began to sting for the swelling of his emotions. He had to step back to settle gracelessly into a chair against the wall to keep from falling to the floor and Ser Davos had assisted him over with concern.

"Is something wrong, milord?"

There was trepidation in the man's voice and a little bit of fear and Jon felt begrieved for making him worry because this news was far from unfavorable.

In fact, it was the best news he'd received in a long time.

"It's Bran," he said, struggling for breath as his throat tightened, "and- and Arya."

He had to reread the words several times just to be sure he had read them correctly.

"They're _home_!"

Evan as he said them, Jon struggled to believe them, but the characters were plain and clear on the page. Sansa wouldn't lie, particularly not about this. Gods… He'd thought the both of them dead. Bran hadn't been seen since Sam had escorted him through the Wall, and Arya… For years no one had seen her after the Lannister's took their father's head. Sansa claimed Brienne of Tarth had briefly encountered her only a couple years ago, only for her to vanish once again.

But, both of his lost siblings were now at Winterfell. After all these years, they were home. They were where _he_ should be, yet he was off on what was looking more and more like a fool's errand.

That was the moment he decided that it was past time they leave.

But, he couldn't go home, however much his heart begged him to. All that was left of his family was now home in the North. That would be the first place the Night King would attack on his savage journey south. No, Jon couldn't go home yet. Making sure they were safe was more important than seeing any of his siblings again and to do that he needed to convince Daenerys Stormborn and everyone else in Westeros that they needed to band together against this common and deadly enemy on the march for their lives. He knew what he had to do.

He only prayed he would survive and make back to Winterfell to see his family again.


	13. Ulterior Motives

Sansa found her sister in her room later that night and closed the door behind herself as she joined her. She knew Arya wouldn't want this conversation to be overheard by any ears other than her own and those of the ever vigilant Ghost whom she had been told never strayed far from the youngest Stark daughter. The direfolw at present resided on the foot of her sister's bed, resting with his head on his crossed paws. Her sister didn't start—had surely noticed her approach from down the hall—or turn as she removed her weapon belt from her waist, setting it, with her sword and the dagger Bran had given her, atop the half-dresser beside her bed.

"Hello, sister," she greeted in that same calm and muted fashion that seemed to be her new standard-although it lacked the terrible vacancy of Bran's voice.

Of course, Sansa didn't come for small talk or to reminisce about how different things were now.

"What's wrong, Arya?" she asked in a blunt fashion which now befitted the both of them.

"I fear I don't know what you mean, Sansa."

The interim Lady of Winterfell marvelled at her sister's ability to lie, for, if she hadn't herself bared witness to the events earlier that day, she would have found no reason not to believe Arya when she said this.

But, Sansa simply stated "You're left-handed, Arya," and her sister, remaining silent, had the sense to know that further claims of ignorance would be fruitless.

And as her gaze turned to the wall and revealed to Sansa her profile, Arya's mask of calm slipped into a look so grim with the haunt of some memory she could scarcely fathom. Sansa hesitated a moment then to know the answer to her own enquiry. But, with a steadying breath, she steeled her fortitude and pressed further.

"Something went wrong during your sparring match against Lady Brienne. What was it?"

Arya turned and held her gaze, steady and considering, and when it seemed she found that Sansa would not drop the issue, she breathed a soft sigh of resignation out her nose and dropped her eyes as if in some sudden shame that Sansa couldn't understand. When she began to undo the ties of her leather doublet, her intent clear, Sansa turned just to make doubly sure that the door was closed for propriety's sake. Off went her outer layer and then Arya turned as she began to unfasten the the strings tying the collar of her undershirt together. She slipped her left arm out of its sleeve and dropped the fabric to hang from her right shoulder. And when the fabric fell away, Sansa felt her breath leave her, rooted where she stood as though her shock had turned her legs to stone.

Because the sheer magnitude of the fresh scar on her younger sister's back wasn't something she'd even begun to anticipate. It stretched across the entirety of her back which was visible, from her left shoulder until it disappeared beneath her shirt towards her right side.

"Ever since I got this… my arm hasn't worked the same."

Sansa still struggled for anything to say, but she finally managed to uproot herself and she crossed the room. Getting closer only made it worse, revealed in the flickering firelight just how jagged the wound had healed and how deep it had to have been at the onset. She reached out towards the sealed wound but drew short of actually touching her sister's back, thinking of how rigid Arya was to any sort of physical contact anymore.

"Gods…" she breathed out, aghast. "What happened? Who did this?"

She didn't expect an answer, of course. Arya had answered very few questions since she'd returned and most of those which she had were usually in the form of a cryptic half-answer which only left more questions.

So, when her sister simply said, "The Mountain," it took a moment for Sansa to realize that there was nothing in that statement to decipher.

Then she was speechless for an entirely different reason because that particular name was one she would never forget, one which brought to mind a joust which had ended in a terrible scene of gore and tragedy. Littlefinger, despite his fatally untrustworthy penchant for schemes and betrayal, could be quite useful. Rumor had spread through one of his spy channels that Ser Gregor Clegane had fallen in a trial by combat yet had risen again as the silent enforcer who followed the now-Queen throughout the Red Keep. If this man had been the one to give Arya this scar, it could only mean one thing.

"Cersei…" she breathed out in sudden understanding of her sister's most recent circumstances, and Arya turned her face away. "The person you tried to kill was Cersei Lannister?"

Arya's head dipped just a little as her shoulders sagged in a show of that same shame Sansa had glimpsed before.

"Tried… and failed," she murmured and there was a pain in those softly spoken words that stunned Sansa, for it was not a tone or emotion oft considered alongside her fierce and unyielding sister.

Sansa resisted once again the instinct to reach out to her sister, to comfort her in that moment. She understood well why Arya had gone to King's Landing on a quest to kill that particular woman. Next to Joffrey, already dead for several years, the death of Cersei, the woman who had given birth to and raised the tyrant king, the woman who had conspired to put the bastard child of her incest on the throne, would be the next step to gaining justice for their father. Sansa had loved their father dearly, of course, but her relationship with him had been rather different than Arya's had been. Where she had been closer to their mother, Sansa knew their father held a place of special importance in the heart of her sister. Unusual as she had been, he had readily accepted her in spite of her irregularities, even because of them at times.

She knew there was little Arya wouldn't do to avenge his death.

"I'll fetch Maester Wolkan," Sansa said, drawing her hand back from the space between them, waiting not for a response before she turned to do so.

She returned several moments later with the aforementioned Maester to find Arya, her shirt in place once again, sitting on the bed beside Ghost and ruffling the scruff at the slumbering direwolf's neck. The expression she wore was distant as she observed that large wolf, thoughts surely drifting to their brother, so far away.

Upon the entrance of Sansa and the Maester, Arya turned to them and stood. As soon as the door was closed once more, she half-disrobed as she had moments before to show Maester Wolkan the scar on her back. He did not ask on the origins of the wound save for the cause, knew it was not his place to ask for more details, but the man examined the scar and deemed it, despite its terrible appearance, to be "healed quite nicely". Arya inquired after her arm then and described her circumstances.

In the end, it was determined that the loss of mobility in her arm was not, in fact, a result of the scar or the attack which had caused it but was from damage caused to her elbow. It would seem that when she was fleeing the Red Keep, not that the Maester was aware of the location or circumstances of the injury, Arya had at one point landed on her elbow quite harshly. There were treatments, he claimed, which may help with the pain of it. But, after so long, Arya may never regain the full use of her arm.

She took the news with the same muted calm that she wore so often these days.

"I'm sorry." Sansa offered her condolences, regardless of her sister's outward reaction, once the Maester had departed.

Arya responded with a simple, "I'm fine."

But, Sansa didn't fight the instinct that time. She drew her sister into an embrace because, while the words once again held not trace of deception, she knew them to be a lie. Because how could Arya be 'fine' with it? How could she be untroubled by the knowledge that the movements of her dominant arm would likely be forever hindered, that she would have to relearn tasks which had become replete in order to favor her other, non-dominant arm? To make the matter worse, she had only sustained the injury after failing to avenge their father. It would serve as a constant reminder to that failure.

Sansa expected Arya to pull away, to insist once again that she was alright. When she didn't, even accepted and returned the embrace in a hesitant and unaccustomed manner, it pained Sansa as much as any confession of grief would have.

* * *

That night, Arya slept just as poorly as she had for years, although this time she was tormented by visions of having her arm literally removed from her body, separated from her by the clean swing of a sword. She'd never put much credence into the notion that dreams revealed your deepest fears, but she couldn't deny how much it had impacted her.

For a moment after she awoke in her sweat-stained bedding, she felt that the dream had been reality, that her arm was missing from her person, severed at the middle of her bicep. In inexplicable panic, she'd thrown the furs back, startling Ghost who lay across the foot of her bed. The relief of finding her arm—mostly—well and in place was inarticulable, a refreshing dose of reality to wash away the fear-conjured belief from her sleep. Arya decided she wouldn't get much rest with the remaining tickle of fear in the back of her mind, however, and so stood to prepare for the day a few hours early.

She was just finished dressing when a knock came at her door. She wondered if the timing of the unexpected visit was happenstance when she opened her door to find the thing wearing the face of her brother outside. He sat in his wheeled chair, one of the night guards at his back, supposedly the one to bring him up to her door on the second floor.

"Bran," she offered in greeting to spite the thing which had warped him.

He only gave one of his slow blinks, untroubled.

"Arya."

"Is something the matter?"

If something were truly wrong, it would be more than just the Raven at her door. The entire keep would be bustling with activity and someone with a greater capacity for speed would have been sent to fetch her—meaning no offence to her crippled brother, of course. That being said, it was curious to find him calling on her, and so early at that. But, unusual hour or not, he hardly left his room for anything, so she was curious.

"There is a matter I wish to discuss with you," the Raven said in her brother's dulled voice. "May I come in?"

The petulant part or Arya, the part from her youth which had very nearly been smothered out, wanted to deny him this unless he gave her brother back to her. But, the practical side of her won out, knowing it wouldn't happen for something so simple, and the fleeting thought was pushed aside as she gave a nod and stepped out of his way. The guard who had accompanied Bran remained outside as her brother's jailer rolled his chair past her.

"What is it?" Arya asked once she had shut the door and turned to face the Raven.

He turned his chair around to face her and nothing in his expression hinted at what he had come to say before he spoke five words which nearly unrooted her.

"Jon is returning from Dragonstone, on a mission which will lead him past the Wall." The Raven said the words as though the Stark whose body he'd stolen didn't care about their context. "They set out not long ago and will be returning to the mainland in a little more than a week. They will not pass through Winterfell."

The news was a mixture of the best and worst she'd heard in a long time. The thought of Jon's return made her want to smile and laugh in excitement and tentative joy, but hearing of this mission of his made her blood run cold and spawned an instinct to throw her supplies together and race off to help him with whatever task brought him to that horrible place.

At the same time, she also wondered what Bran's ulterior motive was for giving her this information. Was he telling her as her brother or as the Three Eyed Raven? Was it because he knew how she yearned to see Jon again, or had he seen something in one of his visions that meant she needed to go for some reason which had nothing to do with familial ties? In the end, none of this would have any sway on her next course of action because nothing would stop her from going to rendezvous with Jon.

But, Arya wanted to know who exactly was telling her this, to know if her only other brother really was as far gone as she feared.

"Why are you telling me this?" she asked and watched carefully for any expressions which the Raven might let slip across Bran's face.

At first, there was nothing, no change in that vacant mask, and Arya's hopes for her brother began to fall. But, as the silence dragged on in the seconds that followed, something in his eyes shifted. It was muted, but that vacancy was replaced by the barest hint of confusion, almost as though he was suddenly confounded by his own actions.

It would seem that the all-seeing Raven may not know why he was giving her this information. Could this, she dared to hope, be the machinations of her brother, somewhere deep inside the indifferent seer he'd become? Was it in fact Bran who had come to her at this early hour because he was on some level excited to give her this news?

The optimistic side of her which she'd long thought dead wanted to believe so and Arya nearly smiled.

"Where will Jon land?"

* * *

Petyr stood under the shadow of the overpass which surrounded the courtyard. His mind was turning and scheming as he observed Sansa making her morning rounds, marvelling once again at the strong woman she'd become, so much like her mother but even more beautiful. The arrival of her siblings had proven to be a chink in his plans to regain her confidence, but, in the end, perhaps he could use this current obstacle to his advantage. There had been a tension the other morning between the two Stark sisters and young Brandon was… well, there didn't seem to be much of Brandon Stark left anymore. The arrival of Arya and Bran might just make Sansa feel more isolated than ever, paving a nice stone path for him to walk in and fill the void in her life.

A presence joined Petyr amidst his musings and drew him from his schemes. Turning, he found the youngest Stark daughter, the most recent and miraculous return of the once nearly decimated family, now stood beside him. He had scarcely known of her before and had rarely given her a thought over the years even before her disappearance. She too was looking across the courtyard, her eyes fixed on Sansa, and Petyr knew his staring had not gone unnoticed. Rather than turn his attention to something else to don a pretence that he had not been doing so, he returned his eyes to the girl's older sister. Children had never scared him, and he would make it known to Arya Stark that she didn't trouble him either.

Of course, this girl had the eyes of a killer now. He wondered if her brother and sister had noticed that. It could, in the end, be used as something that may turn Sansa against her, so Petyr tucked the information away for later consideration.

"I would like you to know, Petyr Baelish, that you're on my list," Arya Stark said, her voice calm.

Despite her reputation from her younger years, this girl struck him as one who chose her words carefully, so the use of his full name and without his title was a curious thing.

"And what list would this be, my Lady?" Petyr inquired just as calmly as she had spoken.

Arya remained still, her eyes fixed on her sister even as her attention was on him.

"I'm going to kill you."

This, of course, was just another in a long line of threats against him, but Petyr was actually surprised by the blunt nature of her words. They had been said simply and without anger or menace or much emotion at all as one might expect from their content. It was the stating of a simple fact. Petyr glanced at the girl from the corner of his eye. He ought to laugh the statement away. Most would. Arya Stark, after all, was little more than a child. But, Petyr hadn't gotten this far in life without learning to recognize a viable threat when it so courteously presented itself to him.

And that had been quite the display she'd put on with the Lady of Tarth the previous day.

"Not yet, of course," the girl continued, her eyes now drifting around the courtyard to seemingly nothing in particular. "You're too valuable at the moment. But, when this war is over…" She let the thought trail off, for it did not need to be said in order to be understood. "It doesn't matter where you go, or how many guards you have or how anonymous you might try to make yourself. Months. Years. None of it matters. I will find you and I will kill you."

"I believe that you believe that, my Lady," Petyr allowed. "Many have tried. I'm afraid I'm not so easy to kill as some think."

The smile that stretched Arya Stark lips set him on edge for the first time during this conversation, a dark glint of anticipation in her eye that he hadn't expected to see from one so young. It was almost feral, in fact. He found in that moment that the most apt and poetically fitting likeness would be a wolf preparing for a hunt.

He was not accustomed to feeling as though he were prey.

"I enjoy a challenge."

Snuffing out the feeling of danger and the tickle of instinct on the back of his neck which bade him to lash out before she could, Petyr turned his eyes back to the early morning bustle in the square and lifted his chin. This girl would never know that she had alarmed him and there was nothing more to be said. The threat had been both issued and accepted.

Yet, the girl lingered.

"Is that all, my Lady? I should really get back to business, I'm afraid."

"Yes, you were quite… _busy_ , weren't you?" she said with a sneer and it was the first hint of any emotion beyond what she willingly expressed, the first crack in her carefully constructed mantle of detachment.

She'd just revealed her weakness, not that it was a terribly surprising one. Duty to one's family, after all, however disliked that family may be, was by far the most common.

"I was just thinking, my Lady. The eye strays where it will."

She wouldn't believe these words for an instant, which was exactly why he said them. They were both well aware of whom his attention had been fixed on when she had approached him.

"There is a lot on my mind. War is a dangerous time. You'd best take care as it draws near. All manner of… tragedies have been known to happen, both on and off the battlefield."

Arya Stark wasn't the only one well-versed in the art of killing, Petyr thought, although he more often orchestrated them than performed them himself. He turned to walk away, satisfied with his final threat and the plans he was already forming to have the girl eliminated. Her voice, however, stopped him after but a few steps.

"One more thing, Petyr Baelish."

Again, the use of his full name and without his title. As he turned back, Petyr wondered if this was how his name appeared on that 'list' of hers.

"Yes, my Lady?"

Her eyes remained fixed on her sister in the courtyard in front of her as she spoke her next words.

"If anything happens to my sister, or if you touch her," she warned, "or if you hatch any schemes involving her, no alliance or even the end of the world will save you. You will die by my hand before a White Walker ever has the chance to end you."

With this final threat issued, Arya Stark turned and walked away, having not looked at him once for the duration of the exchange. Petyr stood a moment, mulling things over, surprised to find such a challenge in the form of such a small girl.

It was rare that anyone got the last word in over him.

* * *

Sansa was hesitant about her plans to leave and something hidden in her expression told Arya that it was for more than just the benefit of any spies under Littlefinger's employ who may be watching. She wasn't just sewing false discord. She was truly anxious about her departure and Arya wondered how much of it had to do with Petyr Baelish himself. She debated in that moment ending the man before she left regardless of the—limited—usefulness he posed. But that would be a short-sighted move and she'd yet to make any plans for assuming his mantle after he was dispatched.

Despite having a wraith haunting her every move, Sansa also understood how much Arya desired to see Jon again. In the end, she wished her good speed and drew her in for another embrace—which the youngest Stark daughter was surprised to find she may be starting to get used to once again—and Arya gave her assurances that she would return as quickly as she could. Considering her iminent absence from Winterfell, while she would very much like to bring him along, she bade Ghost to remain and stay by her sister's side at night. It would surely help Sansa rest, something the people of Winterfell sorely needed of her in light of the invasion to come. If Jon was still the same man he'd been when he'd departed for the Wall, Arya knew he'd agree with, even insist on, the arrangement, even if it meant he didn't get to see his friend before embarking on his quest beyond the Wall. On her way out of the Keep, Arya also bade Brienne to keep particularly careful watch of her sister whenever Littlefinger was afoot, just for good measure.

He wouldn't be given a chance to ensnare Sansa, as he so clearly wished to.

With these failsafes in place, Arya went to fetch her supplies for the road and made her way down and out of the Keep, wishing once again that Ghost didn't have to stay behind to keep vigil over Sansa, for surely he was missing Jon as well.

All things considered, she couldn't say she was surprised to find Gendry waiting at the gates, a packed bag slung over his shoulder and two horses already saddled and waiting.

"Where do you think you're going?" she asked as she drew nearer.

Gendry, having been watching her approach, didn't miss a beat when he offered a grin and answered with a simple and annoyingly upbeat, "With you."

That much of his intent was obvious. What Arya didn't understand was why or how he already had his things prepared for departure.

"Don't you know the world might be ending soon?" she asked, her tone rather the opposite of his. Why would he waste time on this journey when his skills were needed here? "How did you even know I was leaving?"

She'd only informed Sansa and Brienne of her absence to come and she doubted he'd heard from either of them in the limited time since she'd departed their company to fetch her belongings—all of which still fit inside the same pack she'd arrived with.

Of course, that still left one person who was aware of her plans.

All the same, it was still a surprise when Gendry confirmed her suspicions by saying, "Your brother came to the smithy to find me a couple hours ago."

There was an uneasy sort of look in his eyes at his mention of the Raven, the same look most had after an interaction with the seer, which told Arya of the truth in his statement. In fact, it was probable that Bran knew their entire history, which he may have alluded to in their conversation, thus unnerving Gendry. She had a sudden instinct to ask her brother for his opinion, but she quickly snuffed the thought out because why would it matter what his opinion of the smith was? It was a foolish thought which she discarded. Or at least attempted to.

It remained a tickle in the back of her mind, however.

"He asked me to come with you," Gendry added and, honestly, if he'd said anything else, Arya probably would have told him to remain in Winterfell.

His skills as a smith were needed for preparations of the coming war. But, of course, the Raven knew this and had asked him to accompany her regardless. He was not a person who would be accused of being overly sentimental, sending along a capable and familiar, trustworthy face to help his sister as she trekked across the frozen wastes in the North. Bran was far too calculating now to make such an ill-advised move without reason—with the one possible exception being his decision to tell her where and when Jon would be making landfall, which, surprisingly, seemed to be an entirely sentimental one. It could only mean one thing.

Arya may or may not have any part to play in any visions the seer had witnessed, but it would seem that Gendry did.

And she was afraid to realize this, afraid for reasons she would deny outright, even to herself. She was afraid that this part he had to play would be the end of him, that Gendry would be the next in a long line of people to be taken from her. A part of her even hated her brother in that moment, for putting him in that position regardless of what it might mean for him—or her, a small voice inside her chimed in, only to be quickly ignored.

But, despite the fear, a small part of her was glad that Gendry would be traveling with her once more. Not that she expressed as much through words or tone.

"Very well, do as you wish," she said at last, knowing very well that he would follow as she passed him.

And so, Gendry handed her the reigns of her horse and together they left Winterfell to rendezvous with Jon.

* * *

 _A.N.: The scene here where Arya threatens Littlefinger I wrote just after 7x03 and during the pretend sibling squabbles. I'm so happy it turned out to be true. I'm positively giddy, in fact._


	14. Jon

_A.N.: It's painful, how long it took me to finish this, but at last it is done! Hopefully the length of this chapter should somewhat make up for the horrible delay. The chapter title should be rather self-explanatory, so without further ado…_

 _Here's to the 14th!_

* * *

She should feel flattered, really. It would seem that she'd presented herself imposingly enough that Petyr Baelish had deemed it necessary to send someone to deal with her while she was away from Winterfell. Perhaps the man tailing them was to be her assassin or perhaps just a scout to race back and inform Lord Baelish of her impending return. Arya felt a brief stab of fear for Bran's safety, for what plans Littlefinger might have in store for him to ensure Sansa was kept all to himself. Bran may be a seer now, possibly aware that the dagger was coming, but that didn't mean he would be able to stop it. But, she couldn't focus on that. She was too far away now to be of any help.

Their shadow, spy or assassin, was diligent and no matter how she tried to lose him on their journey, altering the time at which they departed in the mornings and taking unusual paths across the tundra, he was always there behind them, a distant but stark figure on the otherwise snow-ridden landscape. She was ultimately left no option but to deal with him, she decided on the third day. She may not even be his target, after all, and any potential threats to her brother's safety would be eliminated long before they had a chance to see their intentions through.

Gendry had yet to take notice of the man, so Arya decided to take care of the matter before that changed, although even she wasn't sure why this mattered to her. He'd seen her kill before and the course of action was entirely necessary and justifiable on her part. Still, irregardless of her own subconscious motives, she left Gendry and departed their camp under the cover of night as naught but a shifting shadow under the pale light of the moon on that empty northern tundra, unaware that Gendry, still awake, assumed she simply couldn't sleep and needed to go for a walk.

He was young, this man sent to tail them to some unknown end. Too young. He was hardly her senior, Arya would guess, and this was surely by design. Perhaps Littlefinger had assumed she would be taken by him, that she would be so distracted by symmetrical features and a strong jawline that she would hesitate and make a mistake. But, she didn't hold such folly against the young man himself. He'd been born with those features and shouldn't be faulted for another's exploitation of them. She didn't know his circumstances in this scenario. He could be working against her family, but he could just as easily be paying off some debt to Littlefinger-and debts to such a man could result in terrible consequences if left unpaid. Or perhaps it was just a job, a means to procure funds to support his family during the long and dismal winter which loomed ahead.

On the outskirts of this agent's little camp, Arya donned the face of a woman a few years the man's senior, a brothel whore beaten and left to die by an unsatisfied customer in a dirty alley of King's Landing. It'd been too late for anything other than a merciful death by the time Arya had found her and now the woman would serve in her death as an agent of subterfuge, useful despite the fact that her corpse had gone cold months ago. Stripped down to her undershirt, Arya waited with her feet in the snow for the chill in the air and underfoot to turn her skin an angry, blotchy red, the kind one would expect to find in one who'd been wandering around in such a state of undress for some time. It didn't take long, not after dark this far north. It was very near instant, in fact, and Arya was reminded once again that even she, a child of the North, had never known the kind of cold they would be facing as the years went on.

In this condition, with the cold nipping at her very bones, the guised Stark put on her act, stumbling from the woods like a terrified and weary woman who'd been lost for an hour or so, accidentally left behind from a caravan heading south and away from the worst of Winter's frigid front. The man, seated by a fire, which was meager to further hide his presence from those he was pursuing, had pulled a knife as he stood, but he'd hurried forward to help her when he recognized her as a woman not his mark. And Arya pitied him that he would need to die because he seemed a decent enough sort through his treatment of her, despite his employ as spy or assassin. But, pity wouldn't stay her hand nor would it give her pause. His fate had been decided the moment he'd been sent on his unknown task.

He wrapped her in the blankets from his own bedding and sat her in front of his little fire in the seat he'd been perched in moments before. He introduced himself as Deston. She didn't know if it was his real name. She didn't give him hers. He asked her how she'd come to be on her own so far north and she fed him her lie, a practiced belief in her own false words making them ring true. None of this was because she enjoyed toying with him. This man held none of her ire. It was her mercy, what little she was able to give to this unfortunate soul; to kill this man, little more than a boy, with one swift stroke while he wasn't expecting it, that he didn't suffer the fear of it before she claimed his life with the unforgiving edge of a knife. She did so just after the howl of a distant wolf drew his attention briefly from her. He didn't see the knife coming, would've hardly felt it before it punctured his heart. The stroke was swift, his death quick. She couldn't bury him. In this cold, the ground would be too solid to even attempt to dig any kind of hole.

Minutes later, she returned to the camp she shared with Gendry, carrying one more face in her bag and what little food the man had carried with him, and her sleep was haunted by the same demons it always was.

* * *

She'd failed. Again. It seemed retribution was adamant to remain beyond her reach. Cersei Lannister had slithered through her fingers for a second time and she wasn't so sure she would be given a third chance to end her. And now Arya was running. All but weaponless. Bleeding from a knife wound in her guts. The guards were behind her, the clanking of their armors ever bouncing off the stone walls as she stumbled through the wide open halls of the keep, never closer but never more distant, always _right there_ , just out of sight. She came to an empty bedchamber and slipped inside, closing the door behind herself, and the clatter of armor plates banging together and heavy boots on the marble of the corridor floor quieted, if only marginally, for the sound barrier now between them. She tucked herself into the wardrobe off to one side, thankful for her small stature as she squeezed in behind the exorbitant gowns hanging inside.

But a moment later, the door of the room opened and Arya stilted her breathing, forcing her breaths in and out shallow to quiet them. Footsteps, softer as though he were trying and failing to sneak up on her, pattered on the stone as the agent of her end made his way closer to her hiding place. A shadow appeared beneath the door as he neared, parting soon into two narrower shadows, those cast by his legs and feet, when he got close enough. And as he stopped just outside the wardrobe, readying she could only guess to throw the doors open, Arya pulled a tiny knife, her only remaining weapon, from where it was concealed at her lower back and gripped the handle tight. She would wait, tucked to one side of the closet, to see perhaps if he would miss her. But, of course, she was bleeding. She'd gotten blood on the garments she was hiding behind. Her position was already exposed.

He was going to find her and that would be it and her vision was failing.

Never had she imagined that her death would come before Cersei Lannister's…

But, just as quickly as the footsteps had drawn nearer, the enemy turned and walked away. She was confused by this, naturally, fairly certain her blood was also on the outside of the wardrobe. They weren't even the footsteps of a man in a great hurry to continue the search for the once-again-attempted assassin of his liege. Just as quietly as before, moving casually enough that she couldn't even hear the plates of his armor scraping together, he left, walked away to the other side of the room, and Arya was stunned, waiting with baited breath as she heard him sit on the bed. Then he began to hum. The tune was soft, one she'd never heard but one which was somehow familiar at the same time.

And it didn't matter that she hadn't heard that voice in five years. She recognized it in a single beat of her thundering heart which stilled thereafter for her utter surprise.

She knew it couldn't be. All of her sense told her it was an impossibility, something she was only imagining. But, when she looked back, the clothes in that wardrobe which she'd tucked herself behind weren't silken or extravagant. They were thick and practical with fur linings fit to fend off the cold. They were tertiary in color and smelling of trees and fresh air. The stone underfoot wasn't smooth and polished like glass but left raw and with its own natural strength on display.

Cool air with a scent of trees was breathing in between and under the doors of the wardrobe and Arya forgot that she'd been dying just a moment ago. When she stepped forward to ease open to doors of the wardrobe, she found herself looking out into the familiar Lord's chambers at Winterfell. It wasn't, however, this realization which stilled her.

Her father sat on the bed, humming softly as he ran a cleaning rag along the polished, shining and rippled steel of Ice. He was facing the open window, bright morning light beaming through and letting in the crisp northern air, allowing it to roam freely to permeate the entire space with the smell of fresh air and crisp pine.

Arya didn't remember stepping out of the wardrobe. She didn't remember drawing nearer. The next thing she consciously realized, she was rounding the bed with slow, unsure steps, afraid that if she moved too quickly he would vanish before her eyes, floating away like dust on the cool breeze wafting through the room. He didn't. He looked up at her approach and the smile he gave her, warm and familiar and pulling on well-used wrinkles around the storm gray of his eyes, took her breath away for the ache it instilled in her heart.

"Arya," he breathed, an easy joy lining his voice as he said her name, and he looked her up and down, marveled, it seemed, by what he was seeing. "My, look how much you've grown, little one," he said in wonderment with a familiar, haunting laugh that nearly shattered her.

With her vision blurring, Arya swallowed thickly and sat beside him on the bed before her legs had the chance to give out beneath her. She studied him as he smiled down at her, finding that he looked the same as the last time she'd seen him and, in that moment, she was glad for Yoren, glad he'd turned her away in that square before she could see her father ended. She was glad that this was how she could remember him.

And she knew.

"This isn't real."

She knew it wasn't, even in what she now knew was her own dream, because Eddard Stark had been stolen from this world years before and Ice, the very weapon used to end him, had been defiled and rended in two, plundered and stolen away by the very people who had taken her father from her.

"Real is just a matter of perspective, I think," her father posed, his expression thoughtful and Arya was loathe to disagree with it as he added, "Who's to say you can't still be where you were before but here with me as well?"

"…I suppose no one," Arya ultimately allowed, mostly, she admitted to herself, because she wanted it to be true.

Her father smiled again and this time Arya managed something reminiscent of one herself and then she settled in to watch him continue his work of polishing Ice. It was minutes later, she felt, before she found a question surface in her mind; though perhaps it only felt like several minutes in the dilution of time in this dream.

"What was that song?" she asked, and her father's hand stayed with the rag paused midway down the length of the broadsword in his lap. When he turned to look at her, he seemed curious, so she elaborated. "The one you were humming?"

It had seemed strangely familiar, did even now. It was almost like a tickle from her subconscious a memory she couldn't quite conjure, lingering just out of reach.

"Your mother would sing that song to each of you whenever you took ill. Don't you remember, little one?"

Arya gave a little smile and a small puff of a laugh escaped through her nose.

"Not really."

And her father laughed that laugh again, the one she'd longed to hear for years, and she felt her throat close in on itself as the pressure of unshed tears surged behind her eyes.

"No, I suppose not. You outgrew needing either of us as soon as you could walk."

This statement, the almost laughable fallacy of it in its entirety, was almost enough to make those building tears fall. Because nothing had ever been more false. She had been headstrong in her youth, so much so that she'd been unable to admit just how much she needed them. All of them. Her father. Her mother. Jon, Bran, Rickon, and Sansa. She'd been determined to make her mark on the world as a warrior, so determined in fact that she'd pushed aside all notions that she needed anyone.

But she had then. And she still did now.

"That's not true," she said, and although she'd barely managed the words, her father turned to her anyway and his smile was now gone.

And on that cold winter night, Arya said those three words she'd been doing everything in her power not to say out loud since he'd been murdered with his own sword, those words she'd feared would break her, tear her asunder and leave her in tattered shreds.

"I-"

She had to take a breath just to conjure the strength to get them out and even then it was as if her voice wasn't her own, raw and trembling and unrecognizable to her own ears.

"I miss you…"

And then her composure was gone. That cold, ruthless killer she'd become fell away and in her place was the little girl who'd been murdered the day Ice fell through the air to take its master's head, a girl wearing the bloodied hands of a person whom she found she no longer recognized.

"Everyday," Arya said, piecing the word together through the trembling of her lips, and she felt the moisture of her tears roll down her cheeks. "So much sometimes that I can't even breathe. They took you! They took you and it's not fair!"

The smile her father gave her then was one of fondness and sorrow. He set Ice asside and drew her to his chest and Arya latched onto him like the little girl she'd thought long dead. She felt herself falling apart, crumbling to pieces as she'd never allowed herself to do, and she cried, cried herself ragged while clinging to the phantom of a man who had departed the world long ago.

"I know. I know…" he muttered into her hair and even though it was a dream, she let herself believe that she could feel the warmth from him. "It's not."

She deluded herself into the belief that she could feel his fingers in her hair. She fooled herself into sensing the familiar smell of him as she buried her face in his chest. He smelled of _home_ , she told herself, and she believed it was there, even though it wasn't, and it was both comforting and rending all at once.

"But, your work in the world isn't done yet, little one," her father said then and she tightened her hold on him. "There is so much yet for you to do. So much you haven't had a chance to be." Emotion shook his voice as he continued and Arya felt more tears leak from her eyes, soaking into the leather of his tunic as she held herself tightly to him. "And I know it's hard, but you have to carry on. You've been holding yourself still, stuck, stuck in that moment with me, and I need you to _let it go_ , Arya. Can you try to do that? Can you try? For me?"

She couldn't give him an answer, not in words, because her throat wouldn't let anything more than minimal breaths past it, but she was able to nod against his chest. She clung to him tighter, but she knew. She didn't want him to, but she knew he had to go.

Because Eddard Stark was already gone.

* * *

Arya woke on this, the night before they reached the beach where Jon would land. It wasn't a frightful awakening, as many others had been, nor was it peaceful. When she awoke, it was to the lingering feeling of her dream-induced reunion with her father, torn from it that she wouldn't drown in the grief of it. She sucked in a harsh gasp of a breath, the frigid night air chilling her airway and lungs, and she clapped a thick-gloved hand over her mouth to keep from choking on it.

Gendry had heard and the humming, that same humming which had brought her dream from its dire straits, humming which she vaguely realized in that moment had been coming from him, stopped. At the same time, Ghost, laying at their heads, had turned and Arya could feel the great wolf staring. Arya had her jaw clamped shut, knew her lips would be trembling if she eased her forced will for them not to, and it was this will which stopped the sobs she could feel in the back of her throat, creeping up and lurking, just waiting for a chance to slip out. She felt Gendry shift beside her, heard him rise up onto his elbow to look her way, and she knew it was coming even before he asked her name in question.

"Arya?"

Her name was soft on his lips and Arya thought he might've been unsure as to whether she'd actually woken, speaking quietly so as not to do that very thing if he was wrong. She didn't respond, wasn't sure she could even get any words past the closing of her throat if she tried. She did know her voice would give her away if she attempted to convince him nothing was wrong. Crying wasn't something she did, although she'd been doing a frustrating amount of it of late, and she was embarrassed by this breakdown she could feel looming just outside the barriers she'd slammed into place, a breakdown conjured by something so silly as a dream. With her jaw still clamped tightly shut to wrestle some control back to herself, she resigned herself to bury it, these things which had come creeping up from the darkest recesses of her heart. To push that pain back down into the pit which housed all the rest, guarded by the deadly spikes of her rage. It would be easy. She'd had plenty of practice over the years.

Then Gendry's hand was on her arm, a hesitant, worried touch as he spoke her name again in much a similar fashion as before, and the walls she was working to lock up tight just… sort of crumbled. Her eyes burned in the icy air as her vision blurred, the dry winter air at war with the moisture which had gathered there, and she closed them to subvert the sting of it, setting free that moisture that it might roll down her cheeks instead and feeling as it started to freeze on her skin. She choked on the air she tried to breath in, too much and all at once. Then a sob, fierce and wrenching, slipped past her dwindling control and the rest of her tears fell free, flowing in a slow but steady stream to freeze onto her skin as the others had. The sobs continued to wrack her body and it wasn't long before she lost the strength to resist them.

Because she missed her father and this truth had finally crept past the iron gates of her forced apathy, slipped through the bars when she'd turned her back to them and ensnared her. She missed his laugh and his strength and his kindness and she missed his embrace.

Perhaps this breakdown had been inevitable from the start, really, only delayed by her will for it to linger in the shadows.

* * *

As it had happened on all other nights since they'd set out, Arya's nightmares had claimed her again and like every other night Gendry had hummed his little tune, less unsure in the melody now than he'd once been given his nightly recitation; although it was surely still a bit toneless thanks to his inept ears.

When he'd first heard Arya breathe in, too abruptly and deeply for it to be an intake during slumber, he'd been afraid he'd finally been caught in this nightly routine. That wasn't to say he felt he'd been doing anything wrong, but he wasn't sure how Arya might react to the situation, knowing that he'd been keeping up at nights just to see to it that she slept a bit. She'd never been one to accept an offer of help, but with this in particular she would know that he had noticed the ghosts which haunted her every night and he feared she might lash out, embarrassed when she needn't be.

All of these thoughts came to an abrupt halt when he noted the unsteady nature of her breathing and Gendry turned, noting absently as Ghost, who had caught up with them several days before, also turned from where he was laying at their heads. Gendry drew his brows together as he listened to Arya breathe because… well, because it almost sounded like she was crying. Or at least on the verge if she wasn't and that… He wasn't entirely sure what to do with that, to be honest. Only once had he ever seen her cry and then it had been a single tear shed silently as she'd finally agreed to, for the moment, give up on her quest for revenge and return to her home. He said her name once, finding for his uncertainty that he couldn't speak very loudly. She didn't react. She didn't turn. She didn't speak.

So, Gendry reached out.

He hadn't expected the low growl from the large direwolf beside them and it drew him up short in an instant, the smith turning with wide eyes to meet the waiting red eyes of the giant wolf. Her current state, he realized, was probably why the wolf, who had thus far been mostly apathetic towards him, was reacting as he was. Gendry sat frozen for a moment, imploring silently for the beast to understand that he meant Arya no harm, and it seemed almost as though Ghost understood, a sort of intelligence in his eyes that the smith hadn't expected to find in an animal.

That time, Ghost let him reach out and Gendry and rested a hesitant, gloved hand on Arya's arm, getting up the guts to look away from the wolf and incur any possible wrath on her part as he said her name a second time. He couldn't see her face, but her next inhale was harsh and stilted like she'd tried to breath in too quickly and then Arya, fierce and detached, self-proclaimed avenger of the Starks…

She _sobbed_. So violently that it shook her entire frame and Gendry jumped in surprise, his fingers twitching on her arm while Ghost's attention snapped to her in an instant, almost as alarmed as Gendry, it seemed.

Her sobs which followed weren't as wrenching as that first, but Gendry struggled to hear them all the same as she ducked her head and pulled her knees up, curling in on herself. He was at a loss, his chest tight and painful as he sat, utterly useless. In all the time he'd known her, that large gap in the middle notwithstanding, he'd never known Arya to break down, especially so fiercely as she was in that moment, and he had no idea if he should try to comfort her or if he should leave her be, let her grieve in peace for whatever her dreams had reminded her of. His heart, foolish as it was, implored him to do the former, but everything he knew of her told him she would surely prefer the latter.

He settled for something somewhere in the middle, left his hand on her arm as he settled back down, facing her this time but with a small bit of space between them.

A small touch atop his fingers through the fur and hide of his gloves drew his attention a moment later and when Gendry looked to inspect, he found that touch was Arya's hand, settled on his, and it made him think that perhaps he'd made the right call.

* * *

They'd made good time, so far as he could tell. It took them two more days for them to reach the castle of Ramsgate and there they left their horses to rest up for the return journey before making the half-day's trek to a shore near where the Broken Branch emptied into the Shivering Sea. Even then, they'd had to wait three more days for the day Arya's seer brother had said her king brother would arrive.

He imagined their excessive punctuality was due to her eagerness, however well she'd hidden it, because they'd been moving along more quickly than he'd expected when they'd first set out. Even now as they sat on a large rock on the shore to wait for the King in the North, he could sense a sort of excitement in Arya, a jittery anticipation as she stared out over the ocean, and he wondered just how long it'd been since she'd last seen her brother.

And, so, they waited.

So used to the beaches in the south, Gendry had been surprised to find the shore too was covered in snow and it had taken him a moment upon their arrival to realize the shore didn't reach as far as it appeared, that there was a frozen outcropping of ice on the surface of the water which stretched out some dozen leaps from land.

One of these days, he might just get used to the cold, but this certainly wasn't that day.

Weren't beaches supposed to be warm?

Ghost was busying himself by meandering up and down the shore in an already well-worn path in the snow, curious it seemed of the surely unfamiliar, fishy smells of the sea. Gendry watched, seeking a distraction and still curious of the large, frightening direwolf as it moved along with an awe-inspiring mixture of grace and power. There was a depth of intelligence in those red eyes as the beast stopped at times to scan the horizon and the smith wouldn't doubt if he knew exactly what they were doing, waiting on that beach.

"It was unfair of me to ask him to stay behind."

These words drew Gendry's attention to Arya and he found that she too was watching the large white direwolf as he started to dig into the snow and sand with two large paws in search of something he had smelled underneath.

"He misses Jon too."

There was a subtle ache in her words and in her eyes as she said this last bit and Gendry had to turn away with a feeling that he was intruding on something he ought not be. He wondered not for the first time if he should head back to wait with their horses at Ramsgate, to let her reunite with her brother privately. But, the king wouldn't be alone, so privacy was already out of the question. Gendry opted instead to try his hand at distracting Arya, that the waiting wouldn't drag on for her.

"I wish he hadn't shown up in the dead of night, though."

The smith's irritation shone clearly through in this complaint and he was relieved when he glimpsed her smile in his periphery, as that was promising for his plan to pull her mind from the waiting. She'd been the one to keep him from pulling a knife on the beast that night when he'd shown up, two glowing yellow eyes staring out at them from the trees, and he'd made his frustrations well-known when Ghost had finally joined them by their horses.

He wondered if it had been Ghost's plan, if he'd found it some sort of enjoyment in scaring Gendry near out of his wits.

"I'd feared for a moment that the dead had come early."

"The White Walkers have blue eyes," Arya supplied simply and there was a touch of humor in her words as she offered this information after the fact.

"It was the dead of night," Gendry reiterated, "so you'll forgive me if I forgot that for a moment."

Then she said, "I would be more worried about bears," and for a moment he forgot about the dead.

Because, honestly, this thought hadn't even once occurred to him and the smith felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end as some foolish part of him feared the simple mention of a bear would cause one to be conjured behind them.

"Is that… something I should've been worried about?"

He couldn't keep himself from glancing back at the treeline and when he turned back to face her Arya was clearly still amused, surely at his expense.

When she said, "No, most of them will probably be hibernating for a few months," he realized she'd been making a joke all along and that it was definitely at his expense.

Gendry glared out at Ghost on the shore, blaming the large direwolf for this situation more than anything else for his untimely arrival all those nights before. He'd meant to distract Arya, not find himself the butt of a series of jokes.

All the same, it was nice to see her smile.

"I almost miss those three days on that little boat to King's Landing," he groused with false petulance as he folded his arms. "Suddenly, the idea of drowning doesn't seem so bad."

Gendry wished he could take the joke back almost the instant he said it.

"Drowning? Why would you have-"

The odd look Arya had turned to give him shifted into one of realization and that glint in her eyes didn't bode well for his already wounded pride.

"Hold on, are you saying that you lived in a port city your whole life, and you don't know how to swim?"

"Is there something funny about that?"

"Your business came from the _shipyards_ ," she tried to reason further as if it was proof of how ridiculous a notion it was.

"Yeah, well, you don't have to work on a boat to make tackles for them. Not like the captains were havin' me paddle the goods out to 'em or nothin'."

The puff of a laugh that slipped out of Arya surely surprised Gendry a good deal more than it did her, but that she brought her hand up to cover her mouth as if to hide the reaction told him it had caught her off guard all the same. He also knew well that it was him she had laughed at, but he couldn't find it in himself to be anything but pleased. She reclaimed control of her bearings in short order, reining in her wayward expression, but that light of humor in her eyes remained and he found it a struggle not to grin in spite of himself.

"You're saying that, not only have you lived in a port city your whole life and never learned to swim, but you had to row your way down a river for several days, fearing for your life the entire way, and you _still_ haven't taught yourself how?"

Gendry groaned a deep and grievous sigh that was mostly for show because he was pretty sure by her tone that she was restraining further laughter.

"Yes," he relented with false indignation, pleased when another laugh all but popped out of her. He enjoyed how it affected her eyes, probably more than he should. "I've admitted it now. Are you happy?"

It took another moment, but then her obvious amusement burst out of Arya as full-blown cackles of mirth and Gendry actually jumped in alarm. She pitched forward a moment later, doubled over by her own laughter as she stamped her foot on the ground, and as the smith watched, stunned, the chill of the north was held at bay for a bit by a warmth in his chest, not one of embarrassment but elation. He was grinning now despite the fact that he was the butt of this joke too because he couldn't remember a time when Arya had smiled so big and her laughter, with its magnitude and its entirely unladylike nature, was rather contagious. She didn't seem to have much practice with it, a complete loss of control of motor function leaving her bent over for several moments and he thought it a wonder she didn't run out of air much sooner than she did.

"I don't have to sit here and take this, you know," he said and, despite the agitation of the words themselves, humor slipped easily into his tone.

Eventually, she managed to calm herself, drawing up straight and breathing deep as she ran her fingers through her hair to bring the mess of brown locks back into some manner of order. Gendry caught himself watching the trek of her fingers more closely than he should've and looked pointedly away.

"I don't remember the last time I laughed," Arya admitted in a soft voice a moment later and Gendry chanced a glance over at her, finding that while the visual signs of her mirth were fading back to her now standard, neutral expression, he probably wouldn't ever forget that smile she'd worn.

With everything looming ahead, it felt good to laugh a little, even at his own expense.

But, maybe it was because of that laughter, that moment of levity, that it hit him so much harder when the reality of the entire reason of their being on that beach settled in on him once again: to meet with her brother who had been treating with the Dragon Queen in order to procure large amounts of Dragonglass, so that they could fashion weapons to fight the armies of the dead who were marching to slaughter them all.

It really only hit him then that they could all be dead in but a few short months.

He sucked in an unsteady breath and nearly choked on the frozen salt in the air. Arya seemed to notice the shift because she turned to look at him and her gaze lingered.

She could probably read him like a book, so he said in a quiet, stilted voice, "I'm scared," unable to look at her as he did so.

It was an admission he'd been trying his best not to voice since he'd first discovered that the stuff of anyone's worst nightmares was on its way down from the farthest reaches of the north to murder them.

"Only an idiot wouldn't be." Arya's words were also quiet and solemn to boot and Gendry hated that he'd stolen the levity from her voice.

He looked down to his gloved hands, finding that even with the coverings he was rubbing the pad of his thumb absently across a stiff callous on his other palm, an old habit he sometimes fell back into whenever he was nervous. Arya was many things. An idiot wasn't one of them and that could only mean one thing.

"Does that mean you are too?"

He wasn't sure if that notion was a comfort, because it meant he wasn't the only one, or if it just made it worse. He hadn't known Arya to be afraid of much, even back when she'd been little more than a child. He wasn't sure if anything could scare her anymore.

But, then she said, "I'm terrified," and Gendry wished on some level that he'd never asked because anything that could scare her was something he would be happy never to face.

"I don't want to die," he said, but even this wouldn't keep him from following through with his still secret plan to join her brother's expedition north. "I've been half-expecting if for four years, but this… This army of the dead… It's the first time I've actually thought it'll happen."

It was as if the Tickler had just picked them all out of that crowd back in Harrenhal, and now they were all lining up for agonizing torture and slow, horrible deaths. Except this time, their death would mean they would join the armies of the dead, and perhaps it was this thought which terrified him most. The smith wondered idly then what would've happened if he'd tried to paddle that little rowboat all the way to Pentos.

Arya's voice drew him back from these wishful thoughts.

"People talk about the Gods," she said and in her tone he could already tell she didn't believe in them. "Old Gods. New Gods. Drowned Gods. Horse Gods. But, there is only one god and His name is Death."

"That's a cheery thought," Gendry deadpanned, a half-joke, and Arya grinned before, to his mind at least, switching topics entirely.

"Do you know what a legacy is?"

Gendry had no idea what she was talking about. 'Legacy' was a strange and foreign word to him and he couldn't for the life of him guess what it meant.

"No," he said, noting the distant look in her eyes, and the words that followed, he knew, were probably ones she'd been told sometime before.

"It's what you leave behind. After you die, it's all that's left of you. It's what you pass down to your children, and your children's children."

And Gendry supposed it wasn't a wonder he'd never heard the word before. It was a fancy word with a meaning fit for high-borns and, despite who his father was, he wasn't one of them.

"That sounds like something for kings and lords to worry about," he mused. "People with enough to leave behind that it actually matters."

But, Arya corrected him, her tone calm, and he thought she'd probably given this all a fair bit of thought before.

"It's more than just 'things', I think. It's what our parents teach us, what they make us. It's the parts of them that stay with us even after they've gone."

While still skeptical to a degree, Gendry actually found some comfort in these words. He didn't remember much about his mother, but he remembered she had been kind and he'd tried to live by that his whole life, using his natural-born strength to defend those who may not be able to defend themselves.

He'd never known his father. The opportunity for that had been stolen from him before he'd even known it was there by the very Queen who now wanted him dead. But, the smith had heard the stories of his father, from back when he'd been more than a lazy, lecher of a king. It had been those stories which had inspired him to create a large hammer for himself not unlike the one his father had once carried during the war. Gendry had always been comfortable wielding a smith's hammer, but if he hadn't known that his father was the now late Robert Baratheon, he probably wouldn't have thought to bring a hammer into battle.

But, all the same, he wasn't sure what all of this had to do with Gods or White Walkers and he thought that perhaps he'd missed Arya's meaning again.

"I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at," Gendry said, drawing his arms tighter against his chest as a cold winter chill swept idly by.

Arya turned to face him and if she was bothered by the wind, she didn't show it.

"Survival is our legacy, the one that's been passed on to us. Not from our fathers or our mothers, but all the way back to the First Men. They survived the White Walkers and the Long Night afterword. Death came for them just like it's coming for us now, and there's only one thing we say to Death."

The pause that followed was surely for dramatic effect, and as the silence lingered, Gendry thought that perhaps her intent was for him to ask her what that 'thing' was.

"And what's that?" So, he did.

But, Arya hadn't paused for dramatic effect.

The small gasp of an inhale she drew in pulled his apt attention to her because he'd never heard such a sound from her before. And when he turned to look at her, he found he hardly even recognized her, this girl he'd known for so long, and he found it difficult to reconcile everything he knew of her with what he was now seeing.

The young avenger's manner had completely shifted from any which he had ever seen from her, even when she'd been broken and bleeding in his smithy all those months ago. Absent was the harsh anger of her youth, anger which had since distilled into a quiet, more deadly sort. Gone was the carefully constructed mask of stoicism she'd worn so often since their reunion. Those cracks he'd seen slowly spread through the last few months as she'd been reconnected with her home fractured outright and left in her expression a raw and open emotion which he struggled to put into words.

She wasn't looking at him and, really, the direction of her gaze should have been his biggest clue. But, Gendry didn't realize what had taken the unflappable Arya Stark by surprise until he looked out to sea.

Their long wait, it seemed, was finally at an end.

The boats were smaller than he'd expected for a King's entourage, but from what little Gendry had seen of royalty in the North, they were considerably more modest than even the lowest of nobles down in King's Landing, more practical and less prone to extravagant displays of power or wealth. These small craft were fit for moving quietly, to slip through the seas near Blackwater Bay without drawing the attention of every ship sailing to or from King's Landing.

They approached from the south, not terribly far from shore from what he could tell, just past the shelf of ice which rimmed the shore. He couldn't see much detail of those onboard, but he could see thick fur cloaks and he was fairly certain those dancing lights were the glistening of light from cloud-dimmed sunlight on the steel of drawn swords. They'd been noticed, it would seem, and Gendry prayed in that moment that these were indeed the boats they'd been bidden to find because if they weren't he and Arya were about to be sorely outnumbered. It would've been unfortunate to go all that way only to stumble upon a raiding party or something of that ilk.

But, then Arya stood and he glanced over to find her attention fixed on those boats, her expression still that same raw mixture he struggled to associate with a girl so familiar to him, and he thought that perhaps they were in the right place after all. She could probably recognize those boats and possibly the rugged dress of the occupants they carried.

That meant her brother was probably one of them, didn't it?

And true it was.

For, Jon Snow, King in the North, had at last returned.

* * *

He hadn't moved much at all the entire journey from Dragonstone, save for when they beached to make camp at night-a more arduous task the further north they traveled for the growing outcropping of ice which barred them from shore. A majority of his time was spent in silent deliberation, considering their future course and making plans for things that may prove pointless at the drop of a sword. They were treading upon the edge of a very narrow knife with this venture and anything, even a shift in the wind could send them over to plummet into oblivion. So, he planned and he planned, dwelling first on their current task and then what would need to come after.

Finding a wight would be no simple undertaking. Capturing one and escaping with it might well be the most difficult thing any of them had ever done.

It was as he was revisiting the very likely possibility of an ambush as soon as they set foot inside the walls of King's Landing that one of the men called out a warning and Jon looked up to scout the trouble for himself. It was easy enough to spot what had evoked the alert by the helmsman. The two dark figures on the shore, while somewhat distant, were stark in contrast to backdrop of the rocky, frost-ridden beach around them.

"An ambush?" Sir Davos proposed, peering out towards this new potential threat with weary eyes, for their journey had been long already, and several of the men drew their swords for the possibility of a fight to come.

"I doubt it," Jon reasoned as he too observed the two people awaiting their arrival on shore. "Not out in the open like that."

"Could be bait, meant to draw us in to that location, luring us into the jaws of a waiting fisherman's net," Davos cautioned, a valid thought indeed were the position in question not barren of all good cover fit for hiding, although he supposed the treeline wasn't too terribly far.

"But, why send to when one would do?" Jon thought aloud.

Why waste a second man fit for ambushing by throwing him out in the open.

Then one of the figures drew his eye as the person stood, too short to be a man from what he could tell. Jon couldn't make out much but brown hair and fur clothes, and even before he spotted the large, white frame of his direwolf against the snow, somehow…

Somehow he just knew, some ineffable instinct, and in that moment he was no longer a king, thrust into an unsought position of leadership by blood and circumstance, sailing north in the hope of securing an alliance in combating the greatest threat anyone in the past eight thousand years had known. He wasn't a man returned from the dead after being betrayed and stabbed through the heart by his own brothers for doing what he could to save the lives of thousands of people. He wasn't a man pretending the world hadn't broken him, shattered him into a thousand pieces only to stitch him back together, all so it could happen again.

He was but a bastard boy, regretting that his desire to take the Black would force him to leave his home, a boy who regretted that he would never get to see his favorite little sister grow up, grow fierce and strong to match that wild fire dancing in her eyes.

The frigid, salty air bit at his own then, a prickling of building moisture that he hardly registered as he sucked in a ragged, painful lungful of that same frosty air. As he stood to watch the figure on the shore, Jon bid with haste that the men to get them there, and when he did so it wasn't an order from a King but a plea from a brother who had so desperately missed his little sister for the better part of seven years.

* * *

Arya felt herself approaching the shore even as one of the men on the nearest boat stood. She couldn't see much of him, just a heavy fur cloak and some dark scruff that hadn't been there before, but she knew it was him.

It had been one thing to hear of his return from the Wall, to learn of his appointment as King in the North after he'd retaken their home from the thieves who had helped murder their family, but this… Seeing him in person was something very different from hearing of him secondhand. The intensity of her own emotions struck her hard, not unlike her fit upon waking from an imagined reunion with their long-departed father.

As she stepped further out onto the beach, mere steps now from the ice which rimmed the shore at the mouth of the Last River and that much closer to her brother, she was struck by a fear she couldn't name. The closer she got to him, the more it felt like he would be ripped away from her as soon as he got too close, snatched away like their brother and her mother on the night of the Red Wedding, murdered by the Fray men before she'd even had the chance to see them again.

'You're afraid," the Hound's words rang in her memory. "You're so close and you're afraid you won't make it," and those words were true, just as true now as they'd been then.

She was afraid and it was this same fear which had sent her away from the Crossroads, into the comforting embrace of her own rage as she attempted to kill Cersei Lannister. When Hot Pie had told her that her brother had reclaimed their home and was ruling as King of the North, she had turned and fled.

On some level, she had feared for years that she was a bad omen. That her mother and brother had been murdered because she had been there. That her aunt had died because she'd been there. That her father's head had been taken because she was there to watch.

But, it was a foolish notion and there were no enemies here. No boy-kings to enforce whims of cruelty. No assassins or greedy men lying in wait with petty slights to justify vain was only wintry air and an expanse of ice between them.

Jon was here and there was no one and nothing that would take him away before she reached him.

Arya didn't remember stepping out onto the ice. The action was ill-advised and foolish because the ice may not be very thick in some places yet and she could fall right through. But, rather than turn around to head back, she took another step forward. She heard Gendry shout out a warning from several paces behind her and she could hear the agitated pacing of Ghost on the snowy shore, but still she didn't stop or turn because in that moment she needed only one thing and nothing was going to stop her.

She needed to reach her brother.

She took shorter, slower steps the further out she went and she kept glancing down at her feet to check her footing, caution finally breaking through this mania that had overcome her wits, but onward she went, ignoring all her best practicality.

She should've just waited back at the shore, she knew, even as she took another cautious step forward. As the oarmen continued to bring the boats closer to shore, some of the men aboard the boats were now using their ice hooks to tear at the thinner ice on the periphery of the shelf. It wouldn't be long before they reached land.

Arya was going to reach them sooner.

She was getting closer, close enough now that she could finally make out the face of the brother she'd once feared never to see again. That dark scruff she'd glimpsed from afar was now identifiable as a beard, full and black, and it made him look so much older, she thought, although there were also the six years she'd gone without seeing him to consider in that regard. There were scars on his face, ones she didn't recognize, but they'd been apart a long time and the scars were already fading.

The thump of something heavy landing on wood drew her attention just when she glanced briefly down at her footing again and when she looked back up to see what that sound had been she drew to a halt.

Jon had shed his thick fur cloak and he was unfastening the belt which held his sword at his hip. In his eyes she could see the burden of looming purpose and the overbearing weight of seven long years. But, more than that, she could see relief and the same longing that filled her own heart and she knew his intent even before he absently handed off his sword to the older man next to him and stepped up onto the rim of the boat. The men on board protested as the vessel tipped, not enough to dump them out but enough to make them worry it might, and then he was on the ice with her.

Two fools, seven years, and twenty feet.

Arya didn't remember moving, but her feet carried her swiftly forward anyway as Jon started towards her. Gone was all thought for the ice and absent was any care for the tears currently freezing on her face and when they finally closed in on each other she practically threw herself at him, her arms squeezed tight around his shoulders. She was a good deal larger than she'd been the last time they'd seen each other, but Jon caught her with an ease that implied she was still that small, 11-year-old girl.

She couldn't see much for the moisture blurring her vision, but she could feel his arms around her, squeezing so tight that if she hadn't already struggled for breath, she might worry about it now. His own breath was warm at her neck, more real, tangible proof that he was there with her and she was taken right back to the day they'd parted, the day they'd shared a very similar, if less bone-crushing embrace.

Arya didn't notice Jon had walked them closer to the shore until he set her down. She would feel silly for crying, but as he pulled away she found freezing lines of moisture running down his own cheeks, so she felt marginally less silly.

He cupped her face with hands and, when he expressed some form of verbal disbelief, she couldn't even focus on the words enough to register them because he was Jon and he was smiling at her in the same way she'd imagined every time she'd looked at Needle and he was _standing there_ when for so long she'd thought she would never see him again. It took longer for her to zone in than it should've.

"Gods, look at you!" he breathed, his eyes practically dancing with joy. "You're all grown up!"

A puff of a laugh escaped her and Arya realized she was smiling, finding for the ache in the unpracticed muscles of her cheeks that she'd probably been doing so for some time.

"Not much taller, though," she said, her words warbled with so much emotion that the deadpan delivery she'd intended for them was ruined.

But, Jon laughed, loud and hearty, and she might've been doing something similar as he kissed her forehead, his beard tickling the bridge of her nose as he did so.

"Where in the seven hells have you been? Sansa said no one had heard of you in years, and then I got a raven saying you'd returned to Winterfell!"

"It's… a long story."

She wanted to tell him the whole thing, even the parts she was afraid to tell him, but it wasn't a happy story and she didn't want to ruin this moment. He seemed to understand and the weight in his eyes as he smiled down at her made her think he had plenty of his own to share.

"I'm sure it is."

But, for now, he pulled her to him, practically crushing her against his chest again for how tightly he held her, and Arya squeezed him right back.

"You should tell me about it sometime," her brother said, his breath mussing her hair on that side, and Arya nodded with fervent agreement.

Arya Stark had returned to Winterfell weeks before, but only in that moment had she finally made her way home.


	15. Starks Can Be Stubborn

_A.N.: So, while I was on a roll the past couple days, I got this chapter done. I've also decided to continue this story after all. This chapter can thus be viewed as the end of Part 1, and when I do I might just continue it in this same posting as opposed to creating a whole new story page. I'm not sure how many more chapters it will have now, but Season 8 has certainly been an inspiring one (and an awesome one!)._

 _I'm excited to post the next chapter for one specific part, but, unfortunately, it'll have to wait until the semester is over :P_

 _So, here it is, chapter 15. I'd like to thank everyone who's left them for their kind reviews and everyone who's stuck with me this far (I know it can take me a while to get these chapters out, so it means a lot)._

* * *

They sat side by side, removed from the others and tucked beside one another by their own solitary fire. Ghost, who had earlier that day threatened to knock Jon from his feet for his enthusiasm at seeing him again, was sleeping soundly at their feet. Reaching down to scratch idly behind the large direwolf's ear, Jon stole another glance at Arya, observing his once little sister under the dancing orange glow of the fire.

She hadn't grown all that much in height during their separation. She barely reached his nose, in fact, and he'd been told more than once that his wasn't exactly a height one should aspire to. One might think for her small stature that Arya was still a child, but in her eyes he saw that she wasn't the little girl half of him had expected to find when he'd first received word from Sansa that their sister had finally returned to Winterfell. The years had been cruel to him and he could see in her eyes that they had been just as cruel to her. He loathed that he hadn't been there for any of it, to protect his little sister where he could.

But, she was here now. Whatever those circumstances were, she had survived them and he would thank all of the gods there ever were for that for the rest of his days, however many or few there might be left.

They spoke little while they ate and not much more for a while after, and he wondered if she was at a loss for where they should start as he was. But, it wasn't a tense silence, so Jon didn't mind it so much, content just to sit with his long lost sister while he was able to. He was used to the silence North of the Wall, used to the still and the chill of the air, although it was a bit jarring that Arya herself, once wild and never still, seemed just as content in the quiet as he was as she sat beside him, staring into the flames, and Jon wondered at the circumstances which had tamed her. At the same time, there was no small part of him that was afraid to know, for the ache which would surely ignite in his already weary heart for knowing those circumstances.

Life, he knew, could be a harsh tutor.

The words his sister spoke next only strengthened those fears.

"I don't know if there's a place for me anymore. At Winterfell…"

For his ponderings and the spontaneity of this claim, it took a moment for Jon to process what exactly his sister had just said. The words themselves were unfathomable, but it was the pain in her words, a subtle but noticeable ache, which nearly made his heart seize up because that pain meant she actually believed them. His initial reaction was to wonder how she could think such a thing. His second was to deny it outright.

"Of course there is. Where else would you belong? You're a Stark, Arya."

There weren't many of them left. They needed to stick together now more than ever, if not for the sake of the family, then for each other.

"I need you with me, especially if I'm going to be a King." He never had wanted the position. He needed her support in this if he was going to keep his head on straight. "You're my sister. You belong back home with the rest of us."

Arya didn't turn to look at him, instead scanning her hands. He wondered about the scar she was fingering on the heel of her palm, but it certainly wasn't his biggest concern at the moment, not when he thought she might've been contemplating leaving.

"I'm not that same little girl anymore, Jon."

There was a weight in her words which made him think she was talking about more than her growth into womanhood during their mutual absence.

"I've… done things. Some of them quite recently."

The way she said it, it almost sounded as though she believed these words would put distance between them.

But, Jon was no stranger to regret.

"We've all done things."

He had hoped this admission of his own sins would offer her some sort of comfort or at the very least get her to look at him, but Arya's expression remained unchanged and she didn't turn her eyes from the fire.

Her next words seemed so detached from their topic of conversation that Jon knew he must've missed something.

"There are rumors in the city of Braavos across the Narrow Sea," she said. "Rumors of faceless men. It's said they can take and wear the face of any man, woman, or child and that even those closest to them wouldn't be able to find falsehood in the illusion."

While an interesting anecdote, she seemed to be working her way up to a point. Jon had heard these rumors once or twice before but had passed them off as nothing more than stories and superstitions.

"That's… certainly interesting. But, there must be a reason you're telling me this."

On the one hand, he was fairly certain he knew what she was getting at given the course the conversation had taken thus far. That didn't make it any easier to believe. During the brief silence which followed his query, Arya fiddled absentmindedly with that same scar on her hand and Jon realized this exchange may have been reminding her where she'd gotten it.

"I went to Braavos," she said. "I was invited by these fabled faceless men. I found them and I trained with them for two years. I learned their secrets. I learned how to lie. How to hurt. How to kill. How to remain unseen in the middle of a crowd. I learned how to create the faces and how to wear them and I learned how to become someone else."

And while his suspicions had indeed been confirmed, Jon struggled against his own disbelief for these fanciful claims of hers. But, he more than most knew that not all fantastical stories were false. The White Walkers, after all, had been not but stories to him until he'd seen his first wight.

All the same, he wondered what any of this had to do with her unwillingness to accept her own place in their home until Arya looked him straight in the eyes and said, "I killed the Freys."

These words she said just as simply as the others and they were most certainly not the words he had expected to hear from his little sister. He wanted to laugh the words away, if only because, in his mind, she was still that 11-year-old girl he'd left six years earlier. But, Arya wouldn't joke about this, not about the people who had murdered Robb. Not about the people who had murdered her mother.

"When I slit Walder's throat," she continued, the words sounding wrong on her tongue to Jon's ears yet spoken so easily, "he was afraid. He was afraid to die, to have his everything ended, everything he'd connived and deceived to build for himself… And I _enjoyed_ it."

Arya stressed this point and he knew this was what she had been working her way up to, that she had enjoyed killing Walder Frey as much, it seemed, as Walder had enjoyed killing Robb and Catelyn. To be honest, Jon wasn't sure how he felt about that, the knowledge of how she had relished the death of another, but Arya would never hear him crucify her for seeking some of the justice owed to their family.

"It was the first time in a long time I'd felt so light," she continued, "so _alive_. And after I took his face and used it to poison the rest of them, I was finally able to get a good night's sleep for the first time in a long time."

No words would come to him Jon found as he sat there, staring into the older, colder eyes of the once young and fierce but ultimately innocent sister he'd left years before. She wasn't lying, as she'd claimed she could a moment before. These words, words he struggled to believe but found he couldn't refute, were true. The Freys were dead, the whole lot of them slaughtered in a single night, and she had been the executioner to carry out the sentence she herself had issued. But, somewhere beneath her words, buried under the apathy she tried to profess in those claims so inconceivable, there was a plea, and he thought that perhaps his sister might've herself a bit lost after everything she'd been through.

And when she asked him, "What does that say about me, brother? About who I've become?" and voiced that plea beneath another veil of apathy, it seemed to Jon as though she had been searching for the answer to this question, and similar ones, for a long time, asking herself and never finding the answers she sought.

His gut reaction was to comfort her, to offer his little sister consolations that it was the fault of the world that she'd been twisted so irrevocably from the woman she may have otherwise become. But, it was likely that Arya had already told herself this in her search for understanding the nature of her own soul. He could tell her she needn't seek forgiveness from him for her quest for revenge for the years-long efforts by so many to exterminate their family. He could tell her that, if she regretted any of it, any action she'd taken while out on her own in a world that could be so cruel, it wasn't too late to make amends.

But, ultimately, the answer to her question was a simple one.

"You've become who you needed to be."

That vacancy in Arya's expression fractured the instant he said it, making way for a sort of vulnerability Jon had scarce associated with his dauntless sister, and he knew she hadn't anticipated this response from him. He wondered if she'd thought he would disapprove, that any of this would mar his opinion of her and turn him away from her. Did she think he would hate her, hate what she'd become?

He could never.

"It's as simple as that." So he needed to make sure she understood this. "It might make you afraid, looking back, afraid that you've lost yourself somehow and it's true. This world can change a person, drastically and irreparably."

Jon spoke from experience here and he wondered if Arya had noted any of these changes in him, the pieces, both small and large, physical and emotional, that'd been chipped away from him over the course of six harsh years. But, it didn't really matter if she had because this wasn't the point he needed to make. He set his hand on her shoulder and he gave her a little shake to make room in that silly head of hers, to clear away all of the things she'd been telling herself, because she needed to hear him, really _hear him_ when he spoke his next words.

"But, this person you are now, Arya, _she's_ the one who survived."

He stressed this with his voice and with his eyes, with everything he had because she seemed to have missed this very important fact while she'd been so busy changing and secretly hating those changes. In the storm gray of her eyes he could see doubts, swirling around and vying for her attention. But, for the moisture gathering there, Jon knew his words had hit home and he prayed they would beat back some of that turmoil swimming around her head. How long, he wondered, had she had these fears, had them and hoarded them for herself? However long it was, it would seem he wasn't the only Stark prone to lengthy, brooding contemplations.

So, he took her head in his hand and he made her listen because, if he were to die north of the Wall, then he wouldn't have his little sister running around believing she was a monster.

"You are who you need to be, Arya. No more and no less. Don't ever tell yourself differently because this person you've become is the one still living and I'm grateful to all the Gods there are and ever were and ever will be that she exists because it means you're _still here_. Don't you dare think otherwise."

Arya's tears broke then, narrow lines of moisture falling free from her eyes, and Jon knew she'd heard him, _really_ heard him. When she hugged him, she did so tightly, fiercely, and for the gasp of an inhale she sucked into her lungs, he thought that perhaps she'd been loathing herself for a long time for, in her mind, allowing herself to become this person she was, this hardened survivor fit to seek the most primal form of justice. And he thought as he held her as tight as he dared to, his small, strong sister, that she may have just let some of that hatred go.

He pressed a kiss to her hair and prayed that she would someday be able to let it all go.

"Don't let that silly head of yours tell you any differently."

* * *

Gendry couldn't say he wasn't curious about what they were talking about over by their solitary fire, so far removed from the rest of them that nothing of their voices carried well enough to distinguish a single word. But, when Arya hugged her brother in that same fierce, desperate fashion as she'd done out on the ice earlier that day, he felt like he was intruding and turned his eyes away and to the fire in front of him, the one he and the rest of the King's entourage had gathered around.

The subtle bite of jealousy caught Gendry by surprise, the bitter thought that Arya seemed to have fallen in so quickly again with her brother when it had taken him days just to get her to speak to him. Most of the time it still felt like she was locking herself away, hidden behind a wall not so literal as the one he intended to follow her brother to, and he missed the days she used to scold him with angry words and easy scowls. Now, most of the time, there was just… nothing.

But he could still remember how she'd laughed on the beach earlier while they'd been waiting for her brother to arrive and he thought with some hope that perhaps he was finally getting through to her, that maybe she would finally talk to him at some point.

"I didn't expect to see you here." These words from Ser Davos snapped Gendry out of his thoughts and he turned to the man seated beside him to find a curiosity in his old eyes as he studied him.

It certainly wasn't where Gendry had thought he'd wind up when he'd woken in his little forge in the Waterfront a few months back to the sound of the bells ringing from the Red Keep.

"To be honest, it still surprised me sometimes," he admitted and Davos seemed to understand.

As the son of a crabber and a former smuggler, Gendry imagined the man had similar realizations from time to time about where he'd ended up.

"I looked for you when I was in King's Landing some weeks back. When I couldn't find you, I feared the Gold Cloaks had beat me to it."

And Gendry grinned then because everyday he kept out of the reach of those bastards was one more day he stuck it to the woman who had murdered his father, a woman who wanted him dead for no other reason than that he'd been born.

"Almost," he allowed, thinking of a day he'd been so sure one of the soldiers had recognized him.

He hadn't and Gendry had lived to smith another day.

"We're lucky they didn't. I reckon we'll need a good smith here soon."

"Who says I'll be any good working with dragonglass?" Gendry quipped and the older man grinned, calling his bluff.

"Are you saying you won't be?"

Gendry couldn't even say the words in jest and he wondered when he'd gained this sense of pride in himself. It had been somewhere, he knew, between rowing a little rowboat to King's Landing and finding Arya at his door.

"So, how did you come to be travelin' with a Stark, if you don't mind an old man prying?"

Gendry turned back to Ser Davos to find an earnest curiosity in his eyes.

"I could ask you the same," he posed. "How does a man serving under Stannis Baratheon come to serve under the bastard King of Eddard Stark?"

He wondered if Davos knew he was avoiding the question. By that glint in his eyes, he may have.

"It's not such a long story, really. After Stannis's army fell to the Boltons, I found myself at Castle Black and from there… I came to be here."

There had been a lot of details in the middle, Gendry was sure, but the man didn't seem to think them important.

"It seems a lot of kings trust you."

"Aye, it does seem to be that way, doesn't it?"

There was humor in Davos's tone and the smith was curious if he ever wondered why so many highborns had come to trust him.

"So, are you going to answer my question?"

Gendry turned and upon his inquiring look, feigning ignorance in the hopes that the man would drop the subject, Davos inclined his head towards the two silhouettes a short ways off. The siblings were just sitting again and the smith wondered again what sort of things Arya might be telling her brother.

When he saw the man nudge her shoulder with his own he felt a sudden pang of emptiness for never knowing any of his family aside from his uncle, not a terribly pleasant man so far as he'd been able to tell. But, thoughts of the man brought up thoughts of his daughter and Gendry wondered idly if they would've gotten along. He was quick to push the thought away. His cousin had just been one more person he'd never gotten the chance to meet before her life had been stolen away. But, perhaps he could still have what he never had, not with the family he'd been born away from but with a family he chose.

Five little words echoed in his mind as he glanced back over at Arya and her brother, words which had made her pause in her aim to leave Winterfell when he'd repeated them to her weeks before.

"She found me in the Waterfront a few months back," he said, but there wasn't much else he could say on the matter without divulging some very sensitive information that wasn't his to give.

"I bet there's a story there somewhere," Davos inferred, ever astute and Gendry gave a nod.

"Aye, there is."

The image of Arya bleeding out on that straw mattress in his little forge surface before he could will it not to and the smith was quick to push it away for the bile that threatened to rise up in his throat. He swallowed thickly and looked over to where her back was facing him, just to cover up that image in his head with one that proved she hadn't died that night.

"But, it's not really mine to tell."

"Fair enough," Davos allowed, agreeing in all of his kindly wisdom to drop the subject.

They sat in silence for a short while after that. Gendry was just beginning to debate turning in for the night, with the hope that Arya's reunion with her brother would ease some of her demons and allow her sleep to remain peaceful, when Davos spoke up again.

"Did she tell you who she is? Is that why you went to Winterfell?"

Gendry shook his head, finding he had been idly rubbing at one of the rough callouses on his palm as he tended to do when lost in thought.

"I already knew her."

This news seemed to surprise Davos, who's gray brows rose up on his wrinkled forehead.

"No joking?"

Gendry grinned, more just for thinking back on a time that seemed so much simpler than their lives were now.

"No. We'd been travelling together for a while when the Red Woman found me."

At this mention, Davos glanced carefully at the men around them as if fearing they'd somehow glean a deeper understanding into those events through some form of mind reading or other magic.

"Look, about that," he cautioned, dropping his tone so only Gendry could hear. "I've been thinking and it's probably best to keep that little bit of information you learned to yourself."

This far north, Gendry saw no point in such caution.

"Why?" he asked, his tone earnest. "There are no Lannisters here. And if Arya's brother brought these men with him to talk to a foreign queen, I'd imagine they're a pretty dependable lot."

"All the same, it's better to aire on the side of caution with these sort of… sensitive issues. Have you told anyone?"

The glance Gendry sent Arya's way was probably rather telling because it seemed to him as though Davos wanted to curse for his perceived foolishness. He felt himself get defensive, offended more for Arya's sake than his own.

"I's not like I need to hide it from her. She hates the Lannisters more than anyone. Not like she'll go rattin' me out or nothing."

Davos's apparent disapproval didn't wane.

"Still, that's not something you should be going around telling everyone," he cautioned.

And, really, Gendry was touched by the man's concern for his safety, but there was really no need for it.

"I haven't told _everyone_. I told her, one person, and she ain't just anyone. I trust her."

He realised too late as a curiosity filled the older man's eyes that he'd probably let too much slip through his tone and Gendry muttered an internal curse and turned his eyes pointedly away towards the fire. He could feel the man staring, though, and felt a need to hammer some steel rising up in his chest.

His affection for Arya, which he feared may have been quite apparent there, wasn't something he would be discussing.

Fortunately for him, Ser Davos took pity on him and let the issue drop.

"Well, I think we'd best turn in, lads," he said instead to the lot of men gathered around that fire. "We've got a long trek ahead of us tomorrow."

* * *

The dawning of the day filled Jon with regret because he knew that with it would come the departure of his sister. He wasn't ready to see her go just yet, but it was necessary and he knew that. He would be sending Ghost with her back to Winterfell, he had decided, because however he had enjoyed meeting up with his old friend again, he didn't want him going north of the Wall on this venture. Between the direwolf and the man Arya had brought with her, it would also mean that his sister would be well protected on her journey back and that would give him some peace of mind as he marched north, quite probably to his death.

The man was, however, unknown to him, so Jon decided to ask his sister about him before he sent her off with him alone. He found her standing alone at the edge of their camp, staring off to the north, and approached. Arya seemed to take notice of him much earlier than he expected, even for the crunch of the snow under his boots, and she turned to face him with a smile lighting her eyes.

At her hip, he noted not for the first time the sword he had once had made for her and for the "A bit," she had responded with when he'd asked if she'd ever used it, he wished they had more time to talk.

"So, who is he? Your friend?" Jon asked, getting down to the matter at hand, and Arya glanced away towards the man in question where he was busy helping the others gather up their things.

"His name's Gendry," Arya said. "He's a smith. Anything more isn't for me to tell you."

He wondered at that cryptic reply, but, before Jon can think to ask on what she meant, she said, "He's going to ask to come with you."

This surprised him because he'd been under the assumption that the man had been acting as her escort across the northern tundra, possibly an unwanted escort sent at Sansa's behest because he imagined Arya would've been quick to refuse.

"He's told you as much?"

"No."

Arya's response was short and, despite the answer itself, she seemed sure regardless.

At first, as the silence dragged a bit, Jon wondered if she planned to elaborate without prompting, but then his sister said, "Bran sent him," and there was something in her tone that drew his attention, an odd quality he hadn't expected at the mention of their brother who had returned miraculously from beyond the Wall. "But he's… Bran is different. He doesn't do anything unless he means to anymore. If he wanted Gendry to come along, he had his reasons."

There was a touch of disdain in her words and Jon thought she was probably displeased.

"You don't want him to come," he inferred, curious now about this Gendry, whom his sister seemed close to despite her predominant absence over the past five years.

She'd always managed to find friends in the strangest of places, he mused with a swell of nostalgia.

"No." Arya's response was as simple as before and it was stated just as simply. "I don't want you to go either. I think it's foolish to risk getting swallowed up by the army of the dead just so you can bring one dead man back in the hopes that showing it to Cersei will get her to do anything other than what she's always done: serve herself."

Well, when she put it like that, it did rather seem a fool's errand, didn't it? But, convincing Cersei was the only way to get her agree to an armistice, which was the only way Daenerys and her army and her three dragons would join them in their fight against the dead. It was a necessary risk, Jon told himself.

"But, if you're all going, I suppose there's nothing for it."

It took a moment for Arya's words, and the meaning behind them, to process in his mind, but Jon realized just what exactly she was getting at and became stern.

"You're not coming."

There was a finality to his tone, but somehow it didn't seem to mean anything.

"I am."

That it wasn't defiance in his sister's tone but rather simple truth was both maddening and a little impressive when he considered how rebellious and outraged she used to get when told she wasn't allowed to do something. She wasn't contesting his order.

She was outright refusing it.

"No, Arya, you're not."

Somehow, it feel like he'd already lost this argument and he wanted to scream at the Gods for giving him a sister as bull-headed as she.

There was a challenge in her eyes when Arya turned to look at him, and Jon could see the quiet but powerful confidence she held in her ability to see that challenge through. It made him wonder again what exactly she'd been through while they'd been apart.

"Who's going to stop me?"

"I-"

And Jon was at a loss because, while he wanted to tell her that he would be more than happy to, he had a feeling that it wouldn't be as simple as it seemed. And then he wanted to yell and shout at her because she was his sister and he couldn't have her following him into the icy jaws of death that might well await this company north of the Wall.

"Seven Hells, Arya! This might well be a _suicide mission_ -"

"Which means you need all of the fighters you can get."

Arya's continued calm in this matter was liable to drive him mad and it made it somehow seem all that much more difficult to dissuade her than it would've if she'd yelled the words at him, screamed and raged at the unfairness of being left behind.

"I'm not going to change my mind about this, Jon, so you should save your breath. I'm coming with you."

And he could see that there would be no deterring her. Jon ran his hands roughly over his face and heaved a heavy sigh. Maddening though it may be, he knew that, barring binding her with rope and sending her back to Winterfell in the back of a wagon, she was right. He couldn't exactly stop her from coming along, not if she wasn't going to listen to reason on the matter. He swallowed the fear rising up from his gut and turned back to her. She looked just as calm as she had been before and he marvelled again at how different she was now.

She no longer demanded respect with harsh, lashing words but rather commanded it with the very state of her being.

Jon, being the fool he was, only agreed to let her come because he thought he would be able to change her mind as they made their way north.

"What kind of experience do you have?"

There was a familiar twinkle of mischief in her eyes when Arya offered a simple, "I can handle myself," and it brought him back to a time when she had made her little schemes to offend their poor sister's many sensibilities.

But, this wasn't the time for reminiscing. He needed to turn Arya from this course and he would much rather not be forced to have Edd detain her at Eastwatch to keep her off it.

"This won't be sneaking in to assassinate an old man and his careless sons," he stressed. "This will be open, grueling, brutal, _unforgiving_ combat. There won't be any control. You won't be able to plan anything. The dead don't behave at all like the living and they will most assuredly fight back. It's the kind of stuff that gives a person nightmares."

Unfortunately, Arya didn't seem swayed in the slightest.

"I'm no stranger to fighting, Jon."

And despite the warnings he'd tried to scare her away with, that mischief in her eyes remained.

"You can go ask Gendry if you want to know more."

He considered her but ultimately conceded to her will, at least for now. If he couldn't change her mind by the time they reached the Wall, then he would be alright having her hate him by forcing her to stay behind. The thought was a painful one and he sighed as he scratched absentmindedly at his beard.

"I wish you would reconsider."

"I won't."

And despite everything, this made him smile, if only for the familiarity of this moment—not so much the 'his sister wanted to fight the army of the dead' part as the 'she refused to listen to any reason other than that which she had defined herself'.

It was good to know that some things never changed.

"No, I suppose you never really have, have you?"

Arya grinned too, a little smirk that sparked that twinkle in her eyes back to life.

"Are you calling me stubborn?"

Jon felt himself laugh, finding his cheeks growing tired for how much smiling he'd done since his company had reached shore the previous day.

"Perhaps."

* * *

He'd gone to see Arya's King brother before they were all to depart and asked to join the company north, dreading all the while what Arya might say when she found out.

What he hadn't expected was for Jon Snow to tell him that Arya had forewarned him about it.

"Yes, she thought you might," he'd said and Gendry had been stunned.

And when he was accepted into the company, the smith was told that Arya planned to come with them as well and it was this knowledge which had him seeking her out for the first time since her brother had arrived.

The look she gave him, daring and obstinate, as he approached her told him she had expected this.

It wasn't that he doubted her skills or thought her helpless because, after how she'd fought off the raiders south of her home, he knew more than most how well she could handle herself. But, it wasn't the only information he knew that the others didn't.

"Arya, are you sure?"

He made sure not to say why he was asking because her injury wasn't something he had a right to tell the others about, even indirectly. But, he needed to ask.

"What if something goes wrong?"

She didn't look at her hand, but the golved fingers of Arya's dominant hand rubbed against the pad of her thumb in a minor fidget and Gendry knew she was aware of why he'd asked. She swallowed but held his eye.

"My arm may never get better," she said. "Not completely. This could be as good as it gets, so if I can't survive against the dead now, then it won't be any different when we fight them later."

It was a practical sort of reasoning, but Gendry was hesitant all the same to agree. He also knew, however, that pressing the issue would do nothing more than reinforce that wall she'd built up between them, so he swallowed the fear that rose up as he thought of her facing an army of dead men in her condition.

"How did you know I wanted to come?" he asked instead. "You brother said you thought I might ask."

He'd been trying to get up the guts to tell her his plan the whole way from Winterfell. Mostly, he'd been trying to steel himself in the event that she didn't have much of a reaction at all.

"People are easy to read."

Gendry almost laughed when Arya said this.

"Not everyone."

He, after all, had been trying to read her for months and had gotten largely nowhere.

Which was why he wasn't at all surprised when, after he saw something in Arya's gray eyes that made him think she may have wanted to say something, it vanish a moment later. But perhaps, Gendry hoped, there would come a day when she wouldn't feel the need to keep it all in. And perhaps, he hoped, he'd be there to see it if that day did come.

So, he let her keep her peace. He though she may have been grateful, but he wasn't sure. But, she walked with him and together they joined her brother and his company on the long march to the Wall where they would then set out on a dangerous and quite probably foolish mission to capture a wight.

Gods willing, some of them might make it back.


	16. Sequel Posted Note

_A.N.: Please note, m_ _ostly due to a need to alter character tags, I'll be continuing this story in a new post. The second part can be found on FanFiction titled 'For the Dawn'._


End file.
